


it's beautiful here

by orphan_account



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Beach Town, Curses, Domestic, Dramatic, Fantasy, M/M, Magic, Not A Happy Ending, Platonic Yungi, Psychological Elements, Siren, Supernatural - Freeform, childhood friends!, hwagi - Freeform, mermaid, merman, minhwa, no beta we die like men, seongi, siren!seonghwa, slight minjoong, slight thalassophobia, spells
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:35:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 27,141
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25400248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: he used to love the ocean. he used to think so highly of it, thought it belonged wrapped up in a present for only himself to come back to, or corked in a bottle with a pretty satin ribbon on it, kept on the top shelf. he found a love that grew with the tireless pull of the current; gentle and growing, constant and determined and lovely.but he’s learned, at the young age of six, that sometimes, the current was too inviting....or, mingi falls in love with a beautiful boy among the waves, humming as slow as the world spun.
Relationships: Park Seonghwa/Song Mingi
Comments: 14
Kudos: 38





	1. seasick

**Author's Note:**

> whew okay
> 
> after taking a break from writing for literally like four hours i am back with another au lmao. 
> 
> my apologies to the few subs that were on this !! i wasn't happy with what i had written, nor did i have enough planned to make a decent plotline but! ive made a lot of notes and rewrote everything so i think i might know what to do for this au
> 
> things always change but i wont delete it again!! we're sticking with her!! ive said before that i always do domestic woosan aus so this,,,, a seongi fantasy siren au,,, is very much a challenge for me but i will try my best to execute my ideas that make sense to you and that you hopefully enjoy reading ^-^
> 
> but before u read:
> 
> \- pls, pls look at the tags!
> 
> TW//DEATH: this au is gonna be angsty and the major character death warning is a thing!! it has mentions of death as well - this is a siren au!! please stay safe!! (sorry if that ruins anything in the au but we gotta be careful!!) 
> 
> END OF TW
> 
> \- most likely will not have as many textfic elements in it like i usually do bc i wanna try to focus on the characters themselves BUT i do have other aus with textfics in my docs so hopefully u stick around to read them later ^^
> 
> \- the themes are a little heavy and might make you sad so pls beware! there isn't anything graphically detailed but still
> 
> \- and some things that sirens do that u will [hopefully] see in this au include: whispering in ears to compel their victims, singing, kissing is poison to those they don’t love, earworms, manifestations
> 
> \- mingi's been going veggie since he was 18
> 
> \- mingi and yunho are best friends and roommates!
> 
> okay that's all! 
> 
> pls enjoy!

_hello!_

_really quick - this story is completely fictional and meant for entertainment purposes only!_

_everything is entirely made up, and the real-life people that the characters are named after have nothing to do with how they really are. i wrote this solely for your enjoyment (hopefully!) and for me to have something to pass the time with._

_please have fun with this, and thank you for everything!_

_\- mandi_

~★~

The first time Mingi dies, he’s six.

He’d never expected the ocean to be the one to kill him back then, to kill a _child_ just as easily as it had loved him. 

He used to watch her for what seemed like hours, speak to the tide and watch the currents carry out his secrets into the navy offing of the sea. The seaweed would tickle his legs and the whelk shells would house the stars at night while barnacles hugged the wooden legs of the boardwalk near the rocks where he used to live. The water would glitter with diamonds in the afternoon, and Mingi would bloom under the cool contrast over his heated skin. Small waves would cascade over him, brushing her fingers through his hair and securing him in her warm embrace while letting his mind run wild within her currents. 

He used to love the ocean. He used to think so highly of it, thought it belonged wrapped up in a present for only himself to come back to, or corked in a bottle with a pretty satin ribbon on it, kept on the top shelf. He found a love that grew with the tireless pull of the current; gentle and growing, constant and determined and lovely.

But he’s learned, at the young age of six, that sometimes, the current was too inviting.

His brothers didn’t know any better. How could they?

And while Mingi was sinking to the sand that day, decorated with saline as pretty seaweed danced around his lungs, as crabs shuffled in his blood and fish blew bubbles in his head, he decided that the ocean wasn’t as nice as he’d thought.

She did things that she didn’t mean sometimes, and that was okay. 

Mingi would just rather not have another accident again. He would rather not have to stare into his mother’s eyes again, as the sea rushed behind them too and fell down her cheeks at the thought of not seeing him anymore. He’d rather not have to learn how to walk and stay upright once the ocean settled itself into his bones and dissolved under his weight instead. He’d rather not have people step on eggshells around him, too afraid of bringing up the beach for summer vacation like normal people do, as if he would drown right in front of them if they did.

No one wanted that burden. Mingi was one of them.

The sea had helped to build him up, only to completely destroy him in a turn of events that he hadn’t expected from something so docile.

She was mean enough to kill him back then, and he hated her.


	2. flood

South Lip Beach was never a pretty place, to begin with.

The water was brackish before it turned into a dazzling cerulean a few feet out, but that was the only decent thing about it. The tide would pull out storms constantly, and the horizon always looked dark, swirling in a waltz of ink and smoke as if the world was slowly ending, starting with that specific beach. People often left trash near the boardwalk, purposefully missing garbage cans in hopes to destroy this beach before it submerged the city completely.

Mingi liked to go on walks near there sometimes to clear his head, making a point to pass by the beach quickly to wind up at Yeosang’s apartment or to see if Wooyoung’s cafe was busy a little faster.

Being placed in the corner of their small town behind a thick brush of dying plants (that Mingi was ninety-percent sure were poisonous, anyway), nobody really knew about that beach. He wonders what would change if people did, if this town was populated enough for people to come here during the summer and swim at that beach. 

The number of deaths would have been tenfold by then.

But even now, as he’s reading an article about the fifth drowning at South Lip Beach within two weeks, he begins to think that maybe it was a good thing there was nobody around to be tainted with that terror that floated on the water's surface. Nobody would be associated with it, nobody would think about it, and maybe it would stop for good once it was forgotten.

But Mingi has learned not to hope for the best. He’s learned that it was nothing but glorified disappointment, wrapped up in fragile lies and beliefs that were bound to be shattered. Hope was something that Mingi could never hold onto, no matter how many times he's found its kindling flame in the dark. It was the limp kite strings in your hand that were clipped just before the wind picks up, like Ferris wheels that get stuck when you’re at the top of the world and you begin to get scared that you would be perched up here forever with no promises of getting down. 

He didn’t want to be caught on top of the world again, only for it to shatter beneath his feet and he would plummet onto the all too hard ground.

Mingi has learned not to hope at all. 

The sun is seeping violets into the sky once again today, yellow powdered over the horizon and the clouds look like cotton as they’re doused in the colors of the afternoon. Mingi liked to watch through his window, to get away for a moment without having to go anywhere, but with the notification from the current events magazine he was subscribed to, he got distracted and time was slowly trickling away from him the more he read.

He felt sick, almost, just thinking about it.

Mingi never expected much, but this would never be the kind of surprise he'd ever want. The constant reminder within the sand of what happened back then, with the murmurs of the moon when the sea wept black ink at night and the drag of the tide as it clawed at the shoreline, Mingi feels like he will never escape his past. 

“Mingi? You in here?” 

His roommate’s candied voice drips into his ear as quickly as it leaves, and when he registers, he tears his eyes away from the addictive blare of his phone screen to glance back at him. His hair is very blue in the light, reminds him of the sky during midsummer or larkspur petals against the sun. 

He was immediately set in a better mood all the same.

The first time Mingi met Yunho, it was in the corner of the sandbox at the playground, Mingi wanting to spend the time playing with toys instead of chasing the others, too nervous and shy to even breathe around them. Yunho had taken it upon himself to join him, and while Mingi didn’t speak, save for the nervous glances in a silent question of how long it would take him to leave, Yunho began to frequent him.

The second time he met Yunho, it was a mess of awkward hellos and compliments that Mingi didn’t think about until hours later, when the moon had erased their terrible conversations and sated his embarrassment for the night. They were at a party, the image of the boy he used to play with half dissolved and forgotten about, until he noticed a familiar smile of saccharine sitting beside Jung Wooyoung and toying with his freshly dyed black hair. 

He was very much alone, back then. He never liked speaking so much, even as he met his new friends in college or the coffee shop he frequents for their sugar cookies. Yunho so effortlessly and quickly changed Mingi, held onto his hand and ran through daisy fields of risk while fireflies lit up with opportunity and swirled around their faces.

He was empty freeways at midnight, the sway of flowers in the doldrums from the northern end of the city, and how moonlight filters into dark ponds and casts an ivory path to both everywhere and nowhere in one motion. 

They were inseparable and often talked about as if they were one person, often referred to together and seen with one another. Mingi loved Yunho a lot. Sometimes Mingi liked to watch him when he was cooking or drawing or talking, and remember how they used to be and how much he’s changed. He liked to peel back layers of the past and fish out the parts he tried not to forget about Yunho, so he could take them with him later, just in case he needed to remember.

Even back then, he was always so  _ radiant.  _ Today, Mingi could tell he wasn't remotely close to that.

“Yeah. What happened?”

Yunho shakes his head and takes a seat on Mingi’s bed beside him, the mattress creaking a bit under him while he lets himself fall back, the bedsheets muffling his fall and a sigh pushing from his lips, too heavy to be just from exhaustion. Mingi can’t help but watch him as he falls into the sunlight through the window, gold flecks that held dreams stippling his bright eyes. 

He shuts them, and Mingi sinks back to Earth.

“Jongho called me just now. He said there was another drowning at the beach.”

His voice was weighted, never being one to react well with a death of any kind. He’d sometimes cross the street to avoid roadkill while Mingi didn’t think twice about stepping over it. And Mingi knew this would imprint his heart for the next week over, even if he didn’t try to think about it.

He's weary as his eyes scan over the print in his phone. There was something about it that just didn’t feel right. Maybe it was the fact that the numbers seemed consistent, never falling and never ceasing. Maybe it was the fact that it amplified his fears by a million and two, that it made him want to move as far from that shitty beach as possible. 

Or maybe Yunho was rubbing off on him, he didn’t know.

“I’m reading about it now. What the hell is going on?” He asks, scrolling to the end of the article to see if maybe there was progress with the investigations and finally, he would feel somewhat at ease.

It wouldn’t be much, but it would be something.

He comes up short and his chest feels heavy, looking over at the links to the previous articles about the beach, and one about a new star discovered in space. He hums.

“I think it’s undercurrents. The same thing that almost got you.”

_ Almost got you,  _ as if it came close but it didn’t. As if Mingi didn’t have nightmares about it for years, twisting in his hot sheets and wishing to claw out of his own skin to this day. As if he didn’t breathe the sea for as long as he could remember, as if his lungs weren’t still crusted in salt.

“Yeah.” He blinks and thinks of the stars. “I think so, too.” 

“You think the police are doing enough about it? I haven’t heard anything from the investigations. What are they doing? Some of them were kids, you know?” 

“I know, Yu. It only started last week. Give them time.”

“How much?” Yunho leans up from Mingi’s bed to look at him, peering straight into the side of his head and burning craters into his skin, red flashing lights going off in his head at the thought of saying something wrong.

Mingi shakes his head, locking his phone and setting it on the windowsill, turning his attention to the sky before him and letting his mind wander past the stratosphere. He almost wanted to go on another walk, to pass the beach and see if it felt different today, to see if he would spot someone before they were pulled into the mouth of the sea and marked as another tally on someone's conscience.

Maybe he could save them in time.

“It’s sad. What if the next is one of our friends?”

“Come on, Yunho. Don’t say that.”

Yunho huffs, falling back onto Mingi’s mattress again and staring up at the ceiling. Mingi begins to wonder the same thing, and exactly what he would do if it were true. He wouldn’t dare imagine the kind of pain others go through. 

Death was such a weird concept to him; it was the static in the television - messy and loud and dramatic and you felt lost if you lingered in it for too long. Some people recovered, some people didn’t. Some people followed suit and some people kept white lilies in glass vases instead.

He didn’t want to fizz out and feel completely isolated from anyone else so long as he could avoid it. He couldn't think about it like that.

Mingi sighs and falls back beside Yunho, his pink hair draped against his white sheets like a bed of cherry blossoms, thinking into the corner of his ceiling about just what is going on with this town. 

There’s a curse over it, that has to be it. Maybe there was something more in the water, besides undercurrents. Maybe the stories weren’t even real, and reporters were just making things up to spark some kind of curiosity within their mundane community to give someone something to talk about. 

Mingi sometimes felt like they lived in a place that wasn’t on the map. He felt he couldn’t pinpoint it on a globe, and couldn’t track it on a GPS. Many times, it was like this place wasn’t real, a dream lost somewhere on an astronomical plane that he couldn’t grasp nor escape, with constantly grey skies and a beach that swallowed people whole.  And many times, he wished that he could leave, but there was no way he could afford to up and go to somewhere that felt remotely authentic. 

And as he listens to Yunho breathe beside him, staring up at the ceiling and counting the seconds in between, letting his head coalesce with the stars above them, he thinks this town was cursed.

It had to be. 


	3. tidepool

Mingi finally gets away from the apartment, not bothering to bring his phone, leaving the articles and the drownings and the memories behind, right on that windowsill. 

Being in a town with absolutely nothing to do except for going outside, he cherished these walks as much as he could. He steps into the darkening sunset, into the beginning of new twilight and the end of dusk, this first step outside liberating in a way that only he knew of. 

The air is cold today, goosebumps descending over his skin as a doldrum passes over his pink cheeks, the sky melding into a dreary and invasive purple grey — ashy, the ugly color it turns before night falls. He breathes in, the faint smell of exhaust blowing smoke in his face from down the road, the gentle breezes tracing his skin as he walks against them with the coffee shop in mind in hopes to catch Jongho on his shift.

Tonight was going to be nice, just like yesterday.

He wonders, if he were to go to the beach tonight — if he were to drift off his path and go straight to the beach — if he would catch someone among the waves and save them. He wonders if he would be able to drag them out of the water in time. 

A part of him, a really brave and daring part of him, wanted to try, to see someone in the water and save them himself, prevent another tally on the numbers. He wanted to do something about it before the police didn’t, before they held another investigation that turned up nothing. And it was selfish — he would only want to do it to prove to himself that the ocean was below him, that he was scared all this time for no reason.

But he knew he would be too scared anyway. 

He wouldn’t know what to do. Everyone thinks they’ll know what to do until it happens, until they get themselves caught up beneath the waves trying to save another. He would be the same way, and then he would die again.

When he reaches the clearing, he sees the rundown adoption center to his left, across the quiet and empty streets that seemed to only be here for decoration, as a qualification in calling this place a city. Rarely did someone travel through here. 

His heart picks up, remembering about this stupid beach, coming up to it with the smell of salt lingering over his head.

He doesn’t want to finish this walk anymore. He wants to turn around, the sudden and drastic urge to turn back and go to the safety of Yunho like a red fire alarm, blaring and urgent and why was he walking so fast? What was he walking to? To death? To another life to be written down and discarded as another drowning? 

He wanted to turn back. He wants to go back to Yunho.

But he finds himself at the clearing instead, dark evergreen leaves brushing his skin and patting his hair as he stares at the empty beach before him. He doesn’t remember ever getting here this quickly. It was dark, navy and indigo - two of the worst colors to ever mix - casting a depressive shadow over the beach, coloring the waters before him black. The leaves, harmless and pretty, felt like phantoms on his skin, causing goosebumps to shower over him, in a way that makes him feel scared.

This beach terrified him. 

Mingi’s eyes scan over the landscape, as he takes in the sound of the waves crashing against the shore, blinking slowly as to not miss the earth spinning in front of him. 

She was spinning in a way that Mingi thought she would never stop, and the beach was dancing to her cadences, the moon casting a spotlight on her stage. The beach was desolate, and he feels almost thankful that he wouldn’t have to see someone drown, have to carry guilt on his shoulders as he left the beach empty-handed. His eyes were bright, despite the darkness in front of him, as he looks at the dark pier that settles into the ocean for fishing, by the huge rocks that seemed to be dislocated from the serenity of the lonely water. He sees the city lights on the northern end of the bayside, sees the lighthouse in the distance that’s been misty for what seemed like years and never alight.

There’s a heavier sound than just the waves against the sand, like when he would splash his brothers in the kiddie pool and they would do the same back and cover him in the cool water. It was playful, encouraging, and he thinks maybe there were dolphins or fish that liked to jump out at night, like they do in the movies.

It’s when Mingi’s looking back at the dock that he sees him. 

His heart is in his ears, vision blurry from the panic that blew into his head, as he stared at him, sitting in the water carelessly as the waves brushed its fingers over his skin.

The boy is beautiful, nearly ethereal as the moon runs over him, glistens off of the water decorating his skin like small diamonds, as if he had been bejeweled by the prettiest gems beneath the earth. His blonde hair was lit up, white and phantom-like, as the silver moon painted him in a platinum wash.

Mingi nearly loses his breath. 

He hadn’t expected anyone to be out here, especially this late at night. His eyes were shut and he was looking up to the sky, leaning back on his hands and Mingi thinks he must be a psychopath or a ghost or _something_ , to be out here without a care in the world, as if he was in his bedroom and there were no undercurrents prowling in front of him to sweep him away. 

He was rinsed in halcyon, his aura placid, almost drowsy, as if Mingi would only ever see him again in a dream.

He would have believed it.

He begins to hum to himself, lolling his head to the right softly as his voice seems to resonate, like how the pluck of acoustic guitar strings echo in an empty room. Mingi felt weird, like he shouldn’t be just standing here, hidden by the ghost of the trees behind him, watching this guy sing to himself as he’s alone in the ocean. 

He feels _weird._

Mingi wants to turn back again, getting frightened the more he thinks this boy might just be a hallucination. He’s always been one to scare, easier than most of his friends, easier than most anyone he knew. Most of his life was spent being jumpy and terrified of anything that wasn’t familiar and not normal for him. 

But this time, it’s different.

Like the sunlight filling the sky in the morning, rays of dread and a heat of fear suddenly permeate him the more he listens to him. He can’t explain it, that extra layer of panic covering him like plastic wrapping. Suffocating, almost. He needs to go.

He’s got to go, _now_.

He steps back, not wary of his movements, his hearing dimmed to his heartbeats, like a sick polyrhythm, it’s deafening, as he listens to the boy’s muffled singing. Like a harp string that’s been torn to shreds, like an augmentation within a chord. 

Sickeningly sweet, yet disturbing, and he wants to leave.

He steps back again, his eyes never leaving the boy, as he tries to find purchase in the leaves behind him. Instead, he makes more noise than what his head was creating for him, and his heart sinks once the boy stops abruptly, the entire world falling silent along with him. He turns slightly, glancing behind his slim shoulder to see Mingi, his eyes nearly glowing in the moonlight.

“Whoa. I didn’t see you. That’s kinda creepy, don’t you think? Watching a dude mind his business in the ocean.”

His voice was darker than Mingi had heard, like someone he knew was speaking to him rather than some random guy singing in the middle of a beach at night. It was soft despite the situation, like cotton balls that had been dipped in black acrylic. 

This was prone to movie plots, not a normal weekday night for a college kid on a _walk_.

He deems it insane.

“I’m...I’m sorry. I didn’t…” Mingi gets flustered, because he begins to think that maybe he shouldn’t have gotten so worked up. He doesn’t know what the hell was wrong with him. It’s just a guy, right? He looked his age, probably even went to his school.

The boy smiles of a radiance that puts the moon above them to shame, looking almost blue in the light. He goes back to the water, averting his attention to the navy ripples around him and swishing his hand through the salty waves, gently curling around him as they softened with time.

“You wanna introduce yourself? I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours. Nice hair.”

“M-Mingi.” Mingi was apprehensive, at the very least, stepping back again, just so the boy was in clear sight, but he could get a head start if he needed to run. “My name is Mingi.” 

He ignores his last remark, because he didn’t know if it was one of sarcasm or genuine likeness for it, and he doesn’t think he should waste so much time over his hair color.

“Hi, Song Mingi. I’m Park Seonghwa. What are you doing out so late? It’s almost seven-thirty.” 

The name, it feels weird. Like mellow clouds on his tongue, like brilliant horizons in his throat, like deep auroras in his chest, he thinks of beauty when he says his name. He feels the stars collide as he thinks, a pretty name to an even prettier voice. A mouth to a whisper. He gets it.

_Park Seonghwa._

“I...I usually go on walks, around here...this late.” He remembers why he even came to this beach, and shudders, but he doesn’t know if it’s because of the cooling doldrums that come from the west end of the sea, or the fact that a handful of people disappeared in that same water Seonghwa is caressing in his hands, as if it spoke of life and not countless deaths.

“Come sit with me? It’s nice to see someone else out here.”

Mingi would never be caught dead like this, sitting in the water beside someone he barely knew. 

And he sure as hell wasn’t going to be.

“I can’t. Not the water.”

“What, are you allergic or something?” Seonghwa glances behind him again with a small crescent moon grin, teasing, and Mingi does his best to take it lightly while his shoes sink into the sand on his way over to him.

His palms are sweaty, and his heart’s beginning to thump loudly again. He ignores Seonghwa for a moment and focuses on his heart.

One, two, three, four, five, six...eight, nine, one, two.

Okay. He was fine. 

He should trust people more, especially if they seemed to be his age. He doubted Seonghwa would kill him. He seemed to have an aged personality, probably liked vinyl and knitted or something lame.

Yeah, Seonghwa was fucking lame. Not scary.

“Tell me about you, Mingi.” 

And with this simple request, Mingi does.

He opens up to Seonghwa faster than he did Yunho and Yeosang, quicker than Jongho and San, easier than Wooyoung and Hongjoong. He was so inviting, in the way he grinned at him when he spoke, looking over his shoulder with sharp brown eyes and a glimmer of chatoyance that would make Mingi feel guilty if he were to walk away now.

And with the nag of going back home to Yunho before the sky got any darker in the back of his head, he tells him that he liked peach lemonade the most, and that he hasn't eaten meat since he was eighteen. He tells him that he was studying horticulture because he’s always liked flowers and his favorite memories were trapped within the vines of the tomato plants that would grow in the corner of his mother’s garden. They would grow past his head and into the sky and he would dream of jumping on the tomatoes into the galaxy. 

Plants were always fascinating to him, so it was only fitting.

And then Seonghwa calls him cute.

“You...you go to university?” He asks, poppies blooming under his cheeks as he looks at the sand. “I’ve never seen you around Palmtins.” 

Mingi is slightly less nervous than he had been before coming here, Seonghwa opting for taking a seat beside him and shrouding him in his aura and all of his cynosure instead of sitting in the water, sand clinging desperately to his legs and feet, wet and glistening as if he was made of the sea itself.

Seonghwa shakes his head, and the waves crashing on the shore in front of him make Mingi shudder as droplets from his hair pierce the warmth in his skin. The waves were calling, persuasive almost, their voices getting softer and more alluring the more time he spent out here with Seonghwa.

“No.” He tells him, while Mingi watches the dark water near the shore tremble. “I’m only here for work. Once I do my job, I leave.”

Mingi makes a face and digs his heel into the sand, holding onto the edges of his pink sweater. “Whoa. You make it sound like you’re an assassin or something.”

Seonghwa breathes out a smile and glances at Mingi, shaking his head and raining more ice onto Mingi’s skin. 

“That would be crazy, wouldn’t it? ”

The idea makes him uneasy, but it doesn’t somehow doesn’t shake the serenity he felt being out here. Again, he remembers that he needs to go back to Yunho and it makes his spine itch. The minutes felt like hours, now that he was going back on it. 

He remembers he didn’t bring his phone with him, either.

“But no. I am a freelance journalist...in the making.” Seonghwa flashes another crescent moon smile, one of the show-stopping ones that put Mingi in the spotlight, and he colors once more while digging his heels in the sand. “I travel a lot. It’s a cool experience.”

“So, you work on your own schedule. That’s cool.” Mingi says, and there’s a particularly loud crash of the waves that shatter his train of thought like thin glass, making him take a breath and look up at the water.

It was so vast, the ocean. It was so full of nothing. It was like a death trap, a drowning waiting to happen the farther you stranded away from shore. Mingi felt suffocated just looking at it, sweat beginning to fill the crevices in his hands, and his heart beating a little too quickly for just looking at the water. Maybe it was because it was dark, and Mingi hated not being able to see his feet, to seek refuge in the fact that the only threat would have been the currents. 

He looks away, back at the shore, where seaweed was caught on the wet sand and gamboling against the movement of the water. 

“Aren’t you scared?” He asks, and Seonghwa looks at him again, his chin resting on his sandy knees.

“Of what?”

“The drownings.”

Seonghwa’s eyebrows come together again, glistening with water. 

“Drownings? Here? No way.” He looks up at the water, eyes floating on the surface. “It’s beautiful here.” 

Mingi looked up at him, then past him into the water as the waves seemed to quiet down, to stay silent as Seonghwa watched it, as if he commanded the sea and the sky and the entire world underneath him.

Mingi would have believed it.

“On the news. The fifth one was the other day. They just…” He sighs, shaking his head once, “...disappear into the water. No one’s found anything.”

“What?” Seonghwa seems almost devastated as his voice softens, ceasing his hand movements in the water and hugging his knees, frail. “That’s so sad. Were there kids?”

“Yeah. Kids, too. Please, just…” Mingi feels weird again, but this time, he actually is going to try to leave. 

No, he’s _going_ to. 

He gets up before Seonghwa has another chance to coax him to stay out here longer, feet pressed into the sand, stuffing his hands in his pockets and staring at Seonghwa’s back, watching as taut muscles wriggled lightly under his skin, as the water shone on him in the moonlight still. “Don’t go any farther than you were if you stay here. I don’t want you to disappear, either. Just don’t drown, please.” 

Mingi kind of wants to do more, but what else is there to be done? He’s not going to pull this guy away from the beach, he’s not going to scream at him. There was no need. 

He was fine, if he stayed put. 

“I won’t. I never do. I just come here at night to get away. It’s nice.” 

“Get away? From what?” 

Seonghwa blinks, resting his chin on his knees again and staring into the sea, as if it housed something that he couldn’t reach. 

“Everything.” 

And Mingi didn’t ask him anything else, because he understood. Some people went drinking, some people went walking or running. Others went to the beach to sit in the water as the moon rose into the nighttime. 

He understood. 

“Anyway, are you leaving?” Seonghwa asks, more of a genuine question rather than one of annoyance, glancing back at Mingi again, his dark eyebrows raised. 

“Yeah. I’m gonna go back before my roommate thinks I’m dead.” Mingi turns without saying goodbye, heading towards the trees, his footsteps silent in the sand, gritty and uncomfortable against his socks as it slips into the heel of his shoes. 

“Roommate? What’s his name?”

“Yunho. He’s my best friend.”

Seonghwa nods.

“Are you coming tomorrow, too?” 

“Maybe. I don’t know.” Mingi feels a rush of importance in him, but he can’t tell if it’s due to the fact that he needed to go, or because there was a chance that he wouldn’t see Seonghwa again. He wanted to, but he was also alright with not seeing him ever again after tonight. That whole exchange freaked him out the more he thinks about it. “Bye, Seonghwa.”

“Okay. Later, Song Mingi.”

Mingi finds that situation strange, how he hummed, how he spoke, as if the two were inseparable friends and this was just a normal weeknight for him. For all he knew, Seonghwa could have been a ghost and he was going crazy. 

He could have passed out from heatstroke and was hallucinating a fucking boy at the beach. 

He takes wider steps on the way back to the apartment, not bothering to look around and take in how the trees look at night. He doesn’t bother. He’s still kind of frightened, if he was being honest.

When he gets home, he opens the door and sees Yunho sitting on the loveseat in their living room, some sort of cartoon playing softly on the television while he scrolls through his phone, probably on social media or something. He immediately looks up once the door shuts, his specs reflecting the light of the living room as Mingi walks in, eyes bright behind his frames and Mingi can’t help but feel at home when he looks at him.

“Hey, Mingi! I was starting to get worried but you left your phone on the bed. The pizza’s gonna be here soon, I—”

Yunho’s dark eyebrows come together slowly, once he sees Mingi’s face. He was always very bad at hiding things, they both knew, and despite him trying to look engaged, he looked nearly too excited over pizza and Yunho finds that suspicious. He narrows his eyes at him, watching him close the door behind him cautiously.

“What’s wrong?”

“What? Nothing. Nothing is wrong.” His voice reminds him of red stoplights and he mentally sighs out because he knew he was as transparent as it gets.

Yunho blinks once, then twice, trying to read Mingi. He knows he’s lying, but there’s a part of him that thinks he’s not, to an extent. Something _was_ weird about him, but not major enough for him to talk about. 

But what kind of best friend would he be if he didn’t pry?

“Come into my office.” Yunho pats the cushion of the loveseat beside him, and Mingi gives him a look, but Yunho shuts his eyes and nods in encouragement for him to come over in a way that was too funny for Mingi to keep a straight face. 

He sighs with a smile, his memories hazy of a beautiful boy sitting in the water, and instead of the beach, he pictures a moonlit pond, flowers floating on the lilies around him, probably a waterfall somewhere. He thinks it’s weird how he has that effect, because he _knew_ it was just the beach, but he had to put a pretty scene to a pretty face.

Everything about Seonghwa was pretty.

He sits down and looks at Yunho, who’s staring back at him with curious eyes and his head tilted, giving Mingi the sign that he was ready to listen and talk to him, even if what he had to say wasn’t important. He liked that about Yunho a lot, that he was always there and willing.

“I saw a guy at the beach. I went, just to see. And he was there and sitting in the water and just being weird. And I told him to leave so he didn’t drown too and he apparently didn’t know about them. He reminded me of you a little bit.” Mingi remembers how upset he had gotten over the mention of the drownings, staring into the couch cushion as he thinks.

“Really? How? What was his name? Does he go to our school?” Yunho’s eyes are curious as they scan over Mingi’s face, something he liked to do every time he came from a walk, just to make sure he was okay, just in case he accidentally fell or got scratched by a branch on the way here.

It was just something he liked to do.

“He was just...I don’t know. Reminded me of you but I can’t describe how. He said his name was Seonghwa. And no, he’s just here for work. He looked our age, though, so maybe.”

“Work? That’s interesting.” Yunho’s eyebrows come together as he thinks about what Mingi said, but he shrugs and takes a big breath, his cheeks high like full moons as he smiles again. “Well! I’m glad you saw someone! I hope he’s okay.”

“Yeah.”

The sound of the doorbell interrupts them, pierced through Mingi’s train of thought like a silver needle, and he breaks the focus from the couch cushions he was staring at and instead gets up, just in case Yunho needed help with the pizza.

He never did, but Mingi thought it would be rude if he didn’t at least stand there.

And in his struggle of trying to forget about Seonghwa, he makes a point to go on another walk tomorrow night.

But just to clear his head again, nothing else.

~★~

To say Mingi had trouble sleeping was exaggerated.

He just liked to sleep when most people woke up for school or work. He set his schedule around that issue, most of his classes past noon, his latest starting at 8pm on Tuesdays. He slept as the day turned into nighttime and woke as the night slipped into morning, finding comfort in the quietness of the world after dark and how nobody would ever be up to bother him except himself.

It’s the morning after he spent that time with Seonghwa, when the sky was swimming in black and he felt like the only person meant to be awake today anyway. A lonely feeling had creeped into his chest, settling heavily into his ribcage and dancing to the slow beat of his heart as the want to get out of bed was enough to get him opening the freezer for ice cream.

The light blushes over his face and he squints in its brilliance, messy pink hair in his face and the tub of ice cream felt colder as he sets it on the island, the soft whirring of the fridge keeping him company for the time being.

His throat trembles as he grabs a spoon from the drawer, the freezer light reflecting in the silver, reminding him of Seonghwa’s wet skin in the moonlight just a few hours ago. He doesn’t like to think that Seonghwa had kept him up, finding a home in his head with the way he looked or sounded or _felt._

He also doesn’t like to think that he was attracted to Seonghwa in any way. He was just interesting.

He was quickly becoming a habit, and Mingi planned on seeing him as soon as the sun began her descent and allowed for them to hold time in their own hands for the night today. Mingi scoops the ice cream in the dark, wondering if Seonghwa had still been at the beach, even now. He didn’t seem to have any intention of leaving. 

Maybe he was the only exception to South Lip Beach. Maybe the water liked him enough to keep him alive when he swam through her waves, or maybe there was an invisible boundary that Seonghwa kept behind, careful not to cross it and upset her, unlike the five people before him.

And then Mingi decides, as he’s shoving a spoonful of butter pecan ice cream into his mouth, that he’s thinking of Seonghwa a little too much than he was okay with.

“Mingi? What are you doing?”

His throat stops trembling with the carry of a song he’s heard before, Yunho standing in the opening of where the kitchen meets the living room, hands pressed against the frame as if he was trying not to be noticed by him. 

As if Mingi didn’t belong here, so late at night.

“Eating ice cream.” He tells him, and Yunho deadpans, his head tilting with an _are you kidding?_ that made Mingi laugh, his lips cold and bottom teeth screaming from the temperature.

“I see _that,_ but...why were you humming? I thought a stranger broke in or something.”

Mingi blinks at him, the ice cream not tasting as good on his tongue as he tried to think of himself a couple of seconds ago. He wasn’t humming.

“I wasn’t humming.” He spoons another into his mouth, a pecan leaving a bitter taste over his tongue and making him grimace. “I just couldn’t sleep, is all.”

“You most definitely were humming.”

“Definitely not. Maybe it was the freezer.”

And the whir isn’t as prominent until he points it out, and suddenly, he feels the chilly nip at his bare shoulders and the side of his torso from the freezer as he remembers the last time he heard that tune that was circulating in his head. Was he humming, really?

He isn’t in the mood for it anymore. Sleeping would be better.

“Alright. Maybe.” Yunho nods slowly, blaming being woken up in the middle of the night on his slight confusion, before turning to head back to his room. “Goodnight. And stop eating ice cream at three in the morning, you’re gonna get a stomach ache.”

Mingi smiles and takes another spoonful into his mouth. “Later, Yuyu.”

For the first time in a while, Song Mingi dreams of the shoreline.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading!! i hope u had fun celebrating with ateez today if u did!!


	4. loch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi!!
> 
> i've finished writing this au and i'm really excited to share it with u!! thank you, if you're still here, for reading and sticking through!! i very much appreciate the kudos and the subs, it makes me want to do better when it comes to writing, so thank you!!
> 
> pls enjoy the rest!

Mingi had been meeting Seonghwa at the beach every day for the past two weeks.

He was quickly becoming Mingi’s favorite thing to pass the time with, but he couldn’t decipher between casually getting to know him as a person and desperately trying to figure him out as a mystery. There was a certain atmosphere he set them both in when he looked at him, as if Mingi would sink past the earth’s core had he not tread carefully. 

But he loved the sense of risk he set within him. He was always so curious about Seonghwa. 

He was his favorite hobby to put his energy into, to spin his dials and pick his locks, to understand exactly what makes him so addictive, like the drag of nicotine into lungs or the tangy bitter essence of a tablet on tongues.

He came here surreptitiously now, lying to Yunho about where he was slinking off to every day at around the same time, dodging his friends’ questions about ditching them to hang out with the boy at the beach while his tune played in his head, like a silver hinged music box. Mingi would imagine being the ballerina that spins while Seonghwa plays his music through the room, the cracks in the walls soaking in his voice while it spreads across the floor.

Yunho would ask, and Mingi would always mask it with _no, it’s not Seonghwa. I haven’t seen him since that one time, don’t worry_ , and after a while, Yunho stopped asking about him. 

He was constantly worried, but he stopped asking.

Mingi, on the other hand, just couldn’t place his finger on what made that beach a safe haven so long as Seonghwa was in it. 

He decided that he just liked going, is all.

The sun had begun to set by the time Mingi got there, the sky submerging them in the different shades of pink that Mingi liked to sometimes watch from his window, while Seonghwa hummed that same tune Mingi’s come to love in front of him, the waves rushing over his legs.

He shuts his eyes, facing the heavy sun.

Mingi watches the fuschia that had settled itself into his platinum hair, while magenta kisses his lips and rose petals powder his skin like the makeup he’d seen his mother dust onto her cheeks before they went out for the day. He looked almost ethereal in the sinking atmosphere, as he lightly swayed his hands in the waves mildly rippling over his legs, cerulean velvet between his fingers, almost like he belonged.

“Hi.”

Mingi blinks as Seonghwa’s humming stops, and his heart soaks up all the silence on the beach as it thumps slowly in his ears at the confrontation.

Mingi was not cut out for confrontation, not ever. And despite them being friends at the very least, despite him spending hours every week just in Seonghwa’s company, the sight of him still made him nervous.

Mingi might have started to like Seonghwa a little more than that, anyway, but he’d never admit it.

Hwa glances over his bare shoulder at Mingi, eyes curious and wandering as they stop at his hair, then fall down his face. Mingi thinks Seonghwa liked his hair more than he did, at the many comments he’d thrown around in their time together, and he planned to dye it a darker color once the roots began to peek out to try and fit in more.

But he thinks that maybe he should keep it pink.

Maybe.

Florid lips quirk into a smile for him but Mingi can’t read exactly what it‘s saying to him this time, Seonghwa always being one to take his time with Mingi when it comes to nearly everything. He colors and looks at the toe of his black shoes being swallowed by the sand, never getting used to Seonghwa’s stare.

“Hello.” 

Despite always trying his best to blend, he can’t help but feel like he’s drawn every set of eyes in the world on him today as he stands behind Seonghwa, settling everyone’s attention on his shoulders as he begins to hum again.

Mingi is caught up in how his voice carries over the surface of the water, mellifluous in the way the currents slithered over the shoreline and stopped to listen to him with encouraging grins. He thinks the beach might have lightened up a little with his song, thinks that it was just a smidge prettier as long as Seonghwa painted it over with his pretty voice.

Magnets made up his soul, and the waves were enticing, like the pull of the southern end as he looked into them, his ears ringing as Seonghwa’s hums spin in delicate chaînés in the back of his head, tethering like the chalky tunes from Christmas snow globes that seemed to play all year round. 

He blinks and feels disconnected as he glances to Seonghwa’s back.

“Um...I didn’t mean to sneak up on you...or anything.” Mingi tries, his voice shy, and Seonghwa gives a grin again that lies heavily in Mingi’s chest and he can’t look at him anymore.

“It’s okay. I missed you.” 

His voice is almost as weighted as the clouds brew ash in the horizon before them. Mingi stares at the smudged perimeter of where the sunset meets the storm, of where the pink soaks up the cinders, and it feels like he’s on a time limit.

But for what, he doesn’t know. He was okay.

“I missed you, too. I came to hang out.”

The butterflies in his stomach flutter wildly, all the way up to his throat when Seonghwa breathes out a giggle at that. Mingi finds him terribly endearing. Seonghwa gets up from the water, but he doesn’t meet him in the safety of the shore like he usually does.

“Well, _Song Mingi_...” And Mingi always liked the way his name slips off his cherry lips as the water melts over his skin, honeyed and pretty and Mingi doesn’t know how Seonghwa didn’t get sick of him always staring at and listening to him yet. “Come swim with me.” 

And the world stops as Mingi tries to think.

He feels void, like he was static on the television screen after you change it to the wrong channel at the thought. The mention of being among the water so casually slams him back to reality that he doesn't know what to really do with himself until Seonghwa tilts his head, breaking the sky apart and waiting for an answer from him. 

“Min?”

“Are you kidding?”

Seonghwa shakes his head, and his eyes soften as if he did something wrong and Mingi feels obligated to listen to him.

“Not at all. We spend all this time at the beach, but we’ve never gone swimming together.” Seonghwa looks up at the horizon, in all of its embers and brooding and mundane appeal. He smiles again and it beams crepuscular rays into the dark sky as he faces the sun, completely enamored. “It’s beautiful here.”

“I can’t.” Mingi says, looking at his shoes, falling sheepish.

Seonghwa looks over his shoulder again, back at the water, his dark eyebrows knitting together and causing creases at the peak of his nose. Mingi realizes he’s never told Seonghwa about it, but it felt like he did. It was so natural to talk to Seonghwa about everything and anything; it felt like Seonghwa knew almost everything about him without much effort.

Mingi found that a little strange.

“Why can’t you?”

He shakes his head, and Seonghwa flicks his eyes back towards the offing with a shake of his own, as if trying to find something. 

Mingi decided that it was one of trying to find a way to convince someone who wouldn’t budge, rather than annoyance for them.

“Um...well, when I was a kid...I…” Mingi digs his heel in the sand and tilts it to the right, then to the left, trying to project his thoughts into the shoreline without straying too close to the water. He bites the inside of his bottom lip and sighs through his nose, trying to shut the gate between breathing real air while standing on the shore, and what it feels like to die in the sea. “I drowned at the beach I lived near. I died that day.” Mingi swallows, sighing and the air feels too thick to be able to pass through him. “Being here right now even feels bad. You make it better, but...it still feels like I’ll die any minute, the closer I get to the water.”

“...Mingi.” 

He looks up at Seonghwa, who has his hand held out and a warm smile that reminds him of summer on his face. He looked so inviting and genuine, Mingi is struggling to find it within himself to turn him down. He turned his darkest fears into beautiful Sunday mornings, with the way he looked at him today.

“I’ll help you. The water is nice. There are so many things in the ocean that are beautiful. Seashells, starfish, sometimes statues at the bottom. Maybe mermaids!”

“Mermaids don’t exist.”

_“Song Mingi.”_

Mingi shakes his head in refusal, but it was porous and he knew Seonghwa could see right through him because he didn’t even believe himself. Seonghwa emphasizes his point by shaking his hand a bit at him, enticing him to take it while his eyes burn craters into his skin.

He was so close. He just had to get up and take his hand. 

And then he would live again.

“At least come sit, Min. You can’t be scared forever. Live a little. It’s beautiful here.”

Mingi feels a slight panic settling in his chest again, terrified that something would pull him under, afraid of the clingy waves and how calm Seonghwa looked in the water and how he just did _not fit_ with how scary it truly was. 

But he thinks he should trust him, give him a piece of his heart to hold onto, even if it was just a little bit.

He steps towards him on wobbly legs, staring at Seonghwa’s hand and trying to focus on breathing, his lungs feeling too small and the air too stuffy for him to be comfortable with. 

“We don’t have to face the ocean. Face me. Let’s talk in the water.”

Mingi’s bones felt heavy, his heart wanting to stay on the shore, while his mind was already diving to the ocean floor and filtering through the seaweed he used to like so much. Mingi had assumed the worst thing in the world was drowning at six years old, but he’s recently discovered it’s the feeling of wanting to break out of the fears holding him back, but not being able to. 

Like being trapped behind thick glass with cracks in it, but it wasn’t breaking, no matter how hard you pushed or kicked it. He was so close, but stuck. And he knew it was possible, but he was scared. 

He finds himself at the tip of the iceberg, the soles of his shoes kissing the water that gently climbed towards him before simpering back into the sea. He felt like he was on the edge of the world, that if he stepped into the water, he would sink to somewhere off the map. He was scared of not being found this time, had he stepped in. 

He was scared of Seonghwa. 

But he hears him, hears the humming that the wind was carrying over them, Seonghwa patiently holding his hand out for Mingi still, but passing the time with the tune. Mingi blinks at him, peers into his eyes and feels safety for a moment, even if he was about to take a plunge he never thought he would be taking this soon.

But if not, when? Seonghwa was right. 

He’s got to live a little.

He hums, and Mingi can’t tell if it got louder, but his entire body was drawn to him in a way that he didn’t mind, but made him feel strange. 

Invincible, but with a fragile heart and a timid stillness in him that made him uneasy.

“I...I’m too afraid.” Mingi barely gets out, and as he’s staring at the brackish water that held too much weight in him, Seonghwa gets in front of him.

Mingi focuses on how he wears the sea as perfume, catching his eyes just as he’s taking his hand. His heart blares in his ears as Seonghwa laces his fingers through his own, and Mingi doesn’t know if he should be freaking out because his shoes were now soaked and the ends of his jeans were sprinkled with saltwater, or because a boy he maybe, _maybe_ liked, was holding his hand. 

What a weird turn of events.

Mingi shuts his eyes and lets Seonghwa take him into the water, his heart racing with his thoughts, trying to keep up with each other. His jeans were clinging uncomfortably around his ankles, and Seonghwa finally let go once they get away from the shoreline, the brackish water to their right and he could see their feet under the surface, sand making a mess around them at the disturbance. 

“We did it. Just like that. Do you wanna sit?” Seonghwa asks, and Mingi feels obligated to do everything he says when he’s looking at him like that. “I’ll stand with you, if you’d rather do that.” 

Mingi doesn’t say anything, too scared of having to keep a promise if he did. Instead, he finds it in himself to take a seat in the water, cold as an icy sting travels up his lower back and branches into his clothes. Normally, he wouldn’t be caught in his right mind doing something like this, sitting on the _fucking beach_ with a boy he just met a couple of weeks ago.

But here he was. 

Seonghwa smiles and sits, half of Mingi wanting to run back into the safety of his apartment, while the other half wants to stay out here with Seonghwa, to see how far he could push himself out into the sea before danger really made itself known for him. 

The sunset had deepened into a bright violet while Seonghwa looked over him, making sure he was okay for now. 

Mingi gets nervous once they make eye contact, his heart shooting up to his throat and he instead looks up at the sky, completely tranquil as the sea lightly tastes his skin, glinting off of his shoulders like studded diamonds. 

Mingi would have believed it, Seonghwa carrying wealth on him almost as well as he did enigma.

“Are you alright?” Seonghwa asks, tilting his head again as he watches Mingi swallow with clenched teeth, and he couldn’t tell if he was shaking because of the temperature of the water or because he was terrified of being out here with the waves seemingly getting bigger to his left.

Seonghwa almost feels bad for tugging Mingi out here.

Mingi hears the water rush loudly and flinches, but nothing hits him except for Seonghwa’s delicate hands over his own. Mingi lets him, not used to being touched or pushed this much to do anything except for with Yunho. Even then, it was nothing compared to this.

And it made him nervous, but he didn’t mind it so much.

Seonghwa is holding both of his hands this time, their knees brushing over each other and acting as an emollient for Mingi as the sea curtained over his feet. 

_You’re safe, you’re safe._

“Y-yeah.” Mingi focuses on their hands, on the way Seonghwa brushes his thumb over the skin of his hand, stroking comfort and courage into him. 

“You’re doing good. It’s not so bad, right?” 

And Mingi finally breathes easy.

“No.” He smiles, and he lets go of one of Seonghwa’s hands to play with the water like he used to, Seonghwa fiddling with his fingers on his free hand and watching him. He was back in the water again, slowly falling in love and letting his damaged heart repair itself among the currents. He was slowly being okay with her again, watching the lavender water drip from his fingers as he brought his hand up to his face. 

Mingi feels resurrected as he looks at Seonghwa, smiling and turning the world on its head. 

“Not bad at all.” 


	5. lagoon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is a little weirdly written but the next ones are fine i PROMISE
> 
> enjoy!

There was a difference between infatuation and interest.

Infatuation was admiring crystals in a healing shop, or listening to the way windchimes ring when doldrums from the east dance through them. Short-lived, and awed, that’s all it was. Interest was long term, the desire to get to know something, or _someone_ , for a while. 

There was a difference.

The line was very blurred when it came to stuff like this, but Mingi knew he was just very much interested. He knew that he liked Seonghwa, and he knew he liked the way he made him feel on the beach. He liked to look at him and talk to him and he especially loved the way time stopped when he made him laugh, even when he didn’t feel like smiling at all.

He knew he loved to listen to his voice, loved the way it carried melodies so effortlessly among the crash of the waves on top of it all.

He was constantly singing along to Mingi’s psyche, strumming his conscience with his fingers and plucking out the prettiest harmonies that only he could listen to, like the lullabies his mother used to sing to him when he was little. 

Mingi thinks Seonghwa is special, to have a gift like that, to have a voice that reminded him so well of his childhood and when he fell in love with the sea, all without much effort. 

And then he would catch himself and think that maybe he was romanticizing him a little too much.

He meets him again today, after almost three and a half weeks of seeing him, and lately, Mingi feels his feet move a little quicker now on his way to the clearing, feels his mind think forward and feels his heart beat a little faster in his chest. He was prepared to sit with him in the water forever and a day after that night, but even now, as they felt like two stray flowers in the middle of a pond compared to the sea, he never really felt ready for it.

He’s been doing many things out of his comfort zone that he never felt ready for lately, anyway.

“I wonder if there are any fish in here,” Seonghwa says suddenly, eyes on the water in front of them while the waves turn to soap suds beside them.

He’s sat beside him, his head resting on Mingi’s bare shoulder as he plays with his fingers again, trying to calm down from how overwhelmed he’d been lately. They’ve been doing stuff like this a lot, Seonghwa not being one to shy away from being honest and doing what he wanted to do, with holding hands and resting his head on shoulders being two of them.

It was just a few days ago when they were sitting together and taking each other in, when Seonghwa whispered into his ear and made him feel like the only person in the world allowed to listen to his voice, filling his head with passion and setting a narrow one track that led straight back to him.

_I like you, Mingi. Please don’t stop seeing me._

And Mingi said he wouldn’t, just like that.

“Probably not. Or maybe farther from the shore.” Mingi pushes his specs up his nose, the sun glinting off of the frames and he ducks his head a little more to get rid of it. “You think there are sharks here?”

“Definitely not. This water has like…” Seonghwa shakes his head. “Zero salt in it.”

“Speaking of...you said your favorite food is sashimi. Is it really?” 

Seonghwa nods. “Yes. You never told me what yours was.”

“Hm...I really like smoothie bowls. The acai ones.” And Mingi remembers the smoothie place and is reminded of Wooyoung’s cafe. “Oh...now that we’re talking about it, there’s a sushi place beside my favorite cafe. Maybe we could go there together one day.”

“Ah, like a date?” Seonghwa perks up and looks at Mingi from beside him, and he erupts into pixels and stares at their hands at the sudden excitement from them, heating up from the middle of his core and feeling it settle in his fingertips.

Meeting at the beach felt routine. He forgot what it was like to go on real dates, rather than just spending time together in the water.

And he colors even more when he realizes these could be considered dates, too, if he _really_ thought about it.

“Y-yeah. Like a...like a date.”

“Okay. Tomorrow?”

“W-well...I was thinking…” In between his muddled thoughts, he remembers the pier not too far from there, near the intersection before merging onto the highway, the faintest hint of adventure trilling in his chest. “There’s a boardwalk a little ways from there. I’ve always wanted to ride the Ferris wheel with someone other than Yunho. The rides are long, and it’s...it’s pretty at sunset.”

“Then let’s go. I’ve never been to a boardwalk before.”

“Really? So we could ride the Ferris wheel together for the first time with each other?”

And Seonghwa recognizes his elation and nods while calling him cute again, before he rests his head back on Mingi’s shoulder, his fingers feeling just as smooth as the water as he fiddles with his middle and ring. Mingi felt good being here, and although he wasn’t facing the offing like he knew he should, he thinks they moved a little bit farther away from the shore. The water pooled over his waist, while Seonghwa kept close to him and acted as a boundary for the rest of the sea.

He was his lifeline for now, his safety, for every time he set foot in this water. And there was a weird trust going on between himself and the sea that he really hoped wouldn’t make him depend on Seonghwa for it, but for now, he was alright with him.

“Hey, look.”

Seonghwa draws Mingi’s attention away from their hands and to a spot in the sea right beside him, the sand curtaining over his hand as he fishes something from beneath it. 

It was flat and white, almost blending in with the ocean floor. Seonghwa pulls it out, the water slipping off of the ridges in the shell and glinting in the sunlight, familiar in how Mingi used to use these to decorate his sandcastles.

“It’s a scallop seashell.” He says, handing it to Mingi. “It means protection. You’re supposed to give them to someone who means a lot to you.” 

“Really?” Mingi asks, awed, taking the shell from him and looking at it, pressed in the palm of his hand. He didn’t know seashells had meanings, like flowers or crystals. That was nice to know.

He blinks at it, and Seonghwa rests his head on Mingi’s shoulder again, playing with the water in front of him, the smile on his face growing as Mingi comes to the realization of what he said a little too late.

“Yeah.” 

A flush grows over his face as he holds onto the seashell, focusing on the water rather than the invisible spotlights on him. He has never been thrown into something like this so quickly, having someone like Seonghwa beside him while he sat in the water of the beach and gave him seashells. 

He runs his thumb over the ridges of the shell, the edge of the shell chipped and rough, but it was still pretty and Mingi thinks Seonghwa’s words held extra weight as they sank into his chest, slipping the seashell into the pocket of his black swim trunks as best as he could in the water.

Being afraid of people, afraid to open up to strangers — Mingi could tell he was changing. 

And as the sunset melted into nighttime, when the stars finally bloomed above them like daisies in May, and the moon smothered them in an ivory radiance, as Seonghwa laughs and splashes him with clear water, as Mingi finds little flat seashells around him to place in Seonghwa’s hair, he thinks that maybe, and only maybe, there were beautiful things in the sea after all.

~★~

“You wanna go get out of here tomorrow? With the others?” 

Mingi sits at his dining room table with Yunho, watching his cold pizza on his paper plate, not in the mood to eat, and only pulling it out of the fridge so as to not worry Yunho. He felt full, Seonghwa occupying his thoughts and his body as easily as he breathed or spoke or hummed. 

His humming. Mingi _loved_ his humming.

He projects his thoughts into the ugly decorations of the paper plate it was sat on, watching the light above them glint on the rim like an asterism. Mingi’s head floats back to the beach, thinking about what it’s like to float on the waves instead, what it would be like to swim with Seonghwa, or maybe stay at the beach for more hours than the day allowed for them. It felt like his heart was stuck there, while his body was in his apartment, longing to be together again.

He missed him already.

“Hello? Earth to Song Mingi?”

Mingi blinks at his roommate, quickly forgetting his question as soon as it was asked. 

“Hm?”

“Tomorrow. Do you wanna see if the others would be down to hang out? I wanna explore a new city or something. This town is boring.” Yunho grumbles, resting his cheek on his knuckles as he scrolls through his phone with the other, a small pout on his rubicund lips at the many dead ends this town has to offer for a pair of college students.

“Oh, uh…” Mingi shakes his head quickly. “I can’t. I’m going to the pier with a friend.”

A friend? That was rich, even for Mingi.

“Really? Who?” Yunho perks up at that, locking his phone to give Mingi his full attention.

“You don't know him. But...he’s nice.”

Yunho raises his eyebrows, somewhat surprised at the fact that Mingi was going to go see someone other than their friend group. He was always known to be quiet and reserved, and it took a lot more than wrecking balls and sledgehammers to break down the walls that he was constantly building up, so Yunho felt like he had to pry, to know exactly who was pulling Mingi out of his comfort zone like this when he sometimes refused party invites from San or dinner dates with Jongho and Hongjoong.

This was good. Yunho _has_ to pry.

“Is it _Seonghwa?_ That guy you met at the beach?” He purrs, leaning forward a bit for emphasis.

And just to be annoying. But Mingi knew that.

He nods and his heart skips in his chest, butterflies caressing his rib cage while his blood pumps just a little bit faster through him. A blush melts onto Mingi’s cheeks and Yunho smiles.

“You gonna take him to that vegan cafe? With the smoothie bowls that you love so much?”

Mingi shakes his head, not wanting to look Yunho in the eye because he could hear the tease riding on his voice and he was already so embarrassed he didn't think he could handle that.

“N-no. We’re gonna go eat sashimi.”

And the air around Yunho suddenly fills, almost too heavy as his eyes sit on him, their weight a little more than just looking at him. He registers, and as Mingi finally makes eye contact with him, he’s got his eyebrows knitted together, staring at him as if he had two heads.

Mingi blinks.

“Sashimi?” And he nods, the image of sliced fish on a cold plate in his head and he suddenly can’t wait for tomorrow anymore. “When did you start eating meat again?”

Mingi blinks, looking at Yunho while the grandfather clock in their living room ticks through their empty dining room. Hollow and loud and heavy, those damn ticks, distracting and kicking around Mingi’s thoughts as he tries to come up with something to say. 

He truly feels like he was caught doing something illegal.

“Oh, uh…” Mingi looks at his cold pizza and doesn’t remember the last time he’s had meat on it. Instead, he finishes his sentence with a shrug. “I dunno.”

“Why now?”

Mingi shakes his head and sighs through his nose, his mind going a million miles per minute trying to come up with an excuse through the many questions behind Yunho’s weary eyes. There was none. This was the first time he’s gone back to it since he moved out here for university and he knew it.

But who cares? It doesn’t matter.

“—doesn’t matter. It’s just food.”

Yunho’s gaze lingers for just a moment, Mingi suddenly becoming very irritated at the fact that Yunho’s voice blanketed so much more underneath it, but he didn’t outright say it. It was just a question, but the more he put thought into it, the more he was becoming suspicious.

“I guess so.” Yunho decides to drop it, hearing the slight tinge of annoyance laced in between his words and he had a slight fear of upsetting people, no matter who they were. So he just drops it. “What time is your date? Maybe we could go after.”

Mingi shakes his head, looking down at his plate again. “It’s not a date, Yu. But you shouldn’t wait up for me.”

Yunho’s eyebrows knit together again, Mingi’s voice feeling foreign. It wasn’t as nice as he was used to, cold like winter, almost as if Mingi wanted to keep him out. He was beginning to feel a disconnect between them, but it was conflicting in the fact that he didn’t know exactly what it was, or how to fix it.

Kind of like an itch deep underneath your skin that you couldn’t get.

“Hey, is everything okay?” Yunho asks, and slowly, Mingi looks up from his plate at him, and smiles. 

“Yes. I’m okay. Just tired today, I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

Yunho nods, but he hasn’t smiled yet and Mingi felt at fault. Maybe he came off too strong. He reaches over and lightly hooks his pinky through Yunho’s, his hand lying beside his phone. 

“I promise everything’s fine. I know how much you worry. Pinky promise.”

And that doesn’t put Yunho at ease at all, but he nods and gives Mingi a smile, before going off to his bedroom to shower before he goes to bed. Mingi was sleepier tonight than he was yesterday, and as he throws out his cold pizza and plate, humming more of his favorite tune that he really can’t seem to get enough of, and he sleeps.

Mingi dreams of Seonghwa.


	6. abyss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a warning - there's a little bit of profanity towards the end! please beware!
> 
> enjoy!

Nervous was an understatement for Mingi today.

It was the way the wind was skimming slowly across his skin, almost as if to remind him that he was almost to the pier, where he would be spending more time with Seonghwa. And he spends hours with him almost every day down at the beach, so it really shouldn’t be much trouble for him to do it tonight, just in a different setting.

Maybe it was the impending fear of heights that would rush back to him from the top of the Ferris wheel that he didn’t really like to think about. He didn’t know.

And his heart drops to the pit of his stomach when he sees Seonghwa there, blonde hair slicked back as if he’d just come out of the water itself, his silky button-down loose and thin and golden against the sinking sun behind him. Mingi feels his hands clam up in a way that somehow makes him feel more nervous as his head feels light, his legs heavy as he makes his way to Seonghwa.

He swallows, trying not to look too hesitant. He’s already flustered and he _just_ got here. 

This is so embarrassing.

“H-hi.” Mingi starts, and he takes in Seonghwa’s pretty brown eyes that twinkle with innocence and the way he smiles with his lips like strawberry taffy, and he has to look at the ground.

“Hi, Min.” His voice carries out almost as easily as the waves kiss the shoreline below them, this beach feeling no different from South Lip.

“Um...The sun is going to set later.” Mingi says, looking up at him again while the sun turned into a spotlight and the stars above him blinked, impatient. “We should kill some time...and then go on the Ferris wheel. If that’s okay?”

And Seonghwa nods sweetly, before reaching out and lacing his fingers through Mingi’s and he hopes to _god_ his hands aren’t as clammy as they felt.

“Okay. I passed the sashimi place on the way. Let’s go...eat first.”

And Mingi smiles, before deciding to just take the initiative. 

He leads him down the boardwalk, the rumble of the small rollercoaster behind them shaking his core as Seonghwa gently swings their hands in the middle of them, Mingi feeling almost brand new in the way Seonghwa felt like the first time.

Mingi has had relationships in the past, where he’s been to places with them and gone to eat with them. But there was something in the way Seonghwa touched him, listened to him even when he had nothing to say at all, looked at him when the sun pierced his skin, that made him feel wanted. 

Seonghwa felt special to him.

By the time they reached, Mingi discovered Hwa’s favorite fish was yellowtail through his many bouts of excitement on the way there, hoping it was on the menu. Mingi makes sure to get a table by the window, being one to really like being so close to the outside rather than in the back of the restaurant.

It was a safety net, gave him a means of escape, if he needed it. And he knew he probably never would, but it was nice to know it was there.

It took them a few hours to eat, most of the time being filled with Mingi trying to enjoy fish for the first time in years and being fully grossed out while Seonghwa encouraged him, not surprisingly (and when Seonghwa fed him a piece of his own fish, he decided that yellowtail _maybe_ wasn’t so bad). 

By the time they got back to the pier, the sun was settling heavily on the offing of the beach beneath them. This beach was a lot prettier than South Lip; the water flushed a little brighter, the waves rolled a little softer, beckoned with more gentle voices and calmer hands. Mingi would definitely spend more time on this beach had it not been too far for him to come every day. 

Plus, South Lip held a good memory, beat with too a steady heart for him to leave.

They were able to get on the Ferris wheel with not too long of a wait, considering nobody really was in the mood for the pier at 7pm on a Tuesday. Mingi preferred it; it felt like he had the whole world to himself and he did not mind that at all.

He swallows once the ride starts moving, more nerves breaking him down and he feels jittery at the thought of being so high on a ride that could break whenever it felt like it. But he realizes he’s being too unrealistic and focuses back on Seonghwa once they spin around once, his stomach lurching at the slight fall before it begins again.

Seonghwa noticed that Mingi had been watching the wheel a little too closely in line, so when they started to turn again, with Mingi’s eyebrows worrying in the middle of his forehead, he took his hand and rested them between them.

Mingi’s tethered again.

“Hey. We’ve been at the beach every day for the past month, and there has been no one there. Isn’t that weird?” Seonghwa asks, his eyes shutting as he rests his head on Mingi’s shoulder, his go-to method of getting away while still being present.

Mingi thinks back to the time when he was so hellbent on not letting Seonghwa drown, worrying about him, even at night. He thinks it’s slightly strange how there has been no news of the drownings anymore, but he doesn’t complain about it, too scared to jinx something into existence and have something else to piggyback on his guilt. 

Guilt. What guilt?

Mingi takes a breath while Seonghwa warms him.

“Y-yeah. That’s a good thing. I just wish the police would do more about the ones that already happened.”

“You’re right. Considering this is a small town, I would think for the police to be tighter about stuff like this. Good to know if I drown I’ll be forgotten about.” Seonghwa jokes, and as shitty as that was, it was true.

Mingi hoped to leave as soon as he could. Maybe then, the new city would have more to do, too.

He looks down to their hands, at Seonghwa brushing his thumb over his skin, swallowing again once they are lifted into the air. As the clouds neighbor them, greet them with soft grins, he finds it a little weird how things change so suddenly, even when you don’t want them to. In this case, Mingi was grateful to not have to read about anyone drowning lately, regardless of the circumstances.

It put him at ease for now.

“At least they stopped. The undercurrents aren’t as bad, probably.”

Seonghwa nods in agreement and Mingi can’t help but feel drawn to him, even now, as they slowly rose above the sun and sank towards the sea. He had this aura about him that reminded Mingi of empty streets at night, freeing and curious and risky. He’d just met Seonghwa a month ago, yet, he was becoming everything Mingi had wanted.

“Hwa...thank you.” Mingi nearly whispers to their linked hands, the sunlight turning Seonghwa’s honeyed skin auric and Mingi thinks he’s the most beautiful person he’s ever seen. “For coming with me.”

Seonghwa smiles and opens his eyes again, flicking to the sunset beside them and watching the sun glitter dance on the waves. They were so high up, Seonghwa would have been convinced that the world really was as exciting as they say.

Maybe.

“Thank you for bringing me along. I had fun with you, today.” Seonghwa lifts his head from Mingi’s shoulder as the Ferris wheel drops them down again, his eyes never leaving the sunset. “You were right. It is pretty up here, at sunset.”

Mingi follows his gaze to the water, thinking back to the times when he had been so afraid of even looking at it as the sunset reflects diamonds off of the surface. Recently, he’s been wanting to watch the waves for hours again, wanting to float on the water’s surface and dive beside the seaweed at the bottom. He’s been wanting to do many things involving the ocean lately and he can’t help but feel indebted to Seonghwa for helping him.

All they do is sit in the water and talk, but to Mingi, it felt like what happened back then damaged him a lot less than he thought. To Mingi, it felt like Seonghwa was slowly giving him his lost memories back, repairing a bit of him and putting him back together again with every visit to the beach. And he probably didn’t even realize how much he meant to him, even after a short time, but it was okay.

Mingi just needed to figure out how to repay him.

“It is pretty.” He sighs, and Seonghwa looks back at him with a grin that reminded Mingi of dawn.

He’s closer than Mingi thought he was, and he feels his heart beating in his ears while his bones heat up, permeating his blood as Seonghwa glances at his mouth, before looking down at their hands. He was shy. There was a weird tension between them since the first day they met, and despite Mingi only really dreaming that they would ease it like this, he’s still scared.

Mingi’s only ever seen this in movies, but he tries not to mess it up.

He uses his free hand to lightly lead Seonghwa’s chin up to face him again, apprehensively kissing him as the Ferris wheel peaks.

Seonghwa’s lips drag a placid electricity through him, his butterflies coming alive and waltzing, his heart in a cadence that makes him think of running through daisy fields again. He warms like the summer sun, heat filling his chest as he could only think of Seonghwa in front of him, and he thinks he’ll skyrocket past the moon once Seonghwa squeezes his hand a little tighter, his other hand gripping Mingi’s shirt for leverage.

Seonghwa kisses him once more, leaning into him further and he softly hits the side of the gondola with a light thud, feeling his chest sear, in tune with the stars in the sky. The ride comes to a slow stop, while Mingi pours all of his fears and desires and tension into the way Seonghwa kisses him above the setting sun, eyebrows coming together as he focuses on him.

They say the kiss of a siren is poison to those they don’t love. Everyone knew that.

So when Mingi kisses him again, and again, as rubies spread beneath his own skin at the sudden feeling erupting within him, as his face warms from the heat of Mingi’s hand on his jaw, Seonghwa thinks that the world really _was_ just as exciting as he’s heard it would be.

~★~

“Found something you like?” 

Seonghwa stares at the keychain in his hands, a small, orange goldfish in the middle of a plastic bag, trapped in resin and silver specks that sparked like stars in the lights of the gift shop, just like the goldfish that you’d see kids win from the fair. 

It brings Mingi back to when he would take home betta fish because he was too afraid of getting a bigger pet. 

He would watch it swim, its navy blue fins dancing behind it like the long sundresses his mother would wear to the beach, blowing in the breeze behind her as he held her hand with the anticipation of playing in the water again. 

His mother had always been beautiful, even when she cried for him that day.

“Yes,” Seonghwa says, flashing a smile at Mingi before going back to admiring it, trying to ignore the slight itch that abruptly flared beneath his skin. “I’ve always liked cute things like this. It reminds me of this town, a little bit.”

“How so?” Mingi asks, and he holds out his hand for Seonghwa to hand him the keychain, in which he does without a second thought and follows behind him up to the cash register. 

Seonghwa watches the keychain dangle from Mingi’s middle finger as he pulls his wallet from his back pocket, lightly biting the inside of his bottom lip in nerves. 

“Like...us. Sometimes, on the beach, it feels like we’re the only two people in town. As if we’re part of something bigger.” 

And that made sense to Mingi, as he smiles at the rather bored looking cashier and hands her a bill, thinking back to how he felt on the beach sometimes. 

They usually found themselves in their own little bubble there, the waves caroling like the music from kalimbas and the sun feeling like all the company they could ever want. Nobody knew about them, almost like a hideout where Mingi could feel both safe and completely vulnerable at the same time with him, as if there was an invisible barrier between them and the rest of the universe.

Almost like the goldfish in the plastic bag.

Mingi kind of liked the secrecy anyway.

“I get that, I think,” Mingi tells him, nodding. 

He gives the keychain back to Seonghwa, who lets it swing from his pointer finger as Mingi thanks the cashier again, leaving the shop and stepping out into the nighttime, hidden by shadows as the last remnants of twilight sift out of the sky.

He tries not to get too flustered as Seonghwa brushes his free hand over Mingi’s, giving him a warning in the form of his heart bursting for the nth time tonight, before he takes it completely, lightly swinging them in between each other as they make their way down the boardwalk. And in his bought of going over the memories of the sushi place and Ferris wheel for the nth time, he can’t help but feel good. 

This was good.

“Thank you for the keychain,” Seonghwa says, cars nearly silent as they speed in front of them down the street like phantoms. “Today was really fun. We should do this again sometime.”

Mingi nods, letting go of Seonghwa’s hand to face him, the keychain glinting in the moonlight as he keeps his finger through it so as to not lose it. “Yeah, we should.” 

It was here when he thought of what a good date would do. What _would_ a good date do? What would he want from him if he were Seonghwa?

“Um...do you…” Mingi looks at the empty road, his cheeks blaring like red stoplights. “Do you need me to walk you home?”

Seonghwa shakes his head with a sweet smile, making Mingi want to jump across a million moons in the way his heart skipped again. 

“I don’t live far, remember? I’m okay. It’s not too dark out.”

And Mingi isn’t sure if he remembers or not, but he nods anyway, shoving his hands in his pockets while Seonghwa looks at his own shoes, trying to come up with something to say, never really doing something like this before.

It never usually takes this long. He was beginning to feel the itch again against his shoulder, his skin dry and uncomfortable, patches imprinting into the skin beneath his shirt.

He needed to go as soon as possible. 

“You know where to find me, then? I’ll be there after work.” 

“O-oh...speaking of...” Mingi remembers their conversation about his job and how he moves from town to town, his mood suddenly shifting. He didn’t want Seonghwa to go so soon anymore. “When do you have to leave again for work?”

Seonghwa shrugs, feeling his shoulder begin to burn as it brushes against his shirt, trying not to wince in front of him. “Not soon. I haven’t done much work lately. But I think I’m onto something. I might look into the drownings that happened, like you said.”

“Really?” 

Seonghwa nods, clenching his teeth at the pain slowly seeping into his skin as he gives him a tight-lipped grin. He’s been out of the water for too long, away from the shore for too _damn long_ , and while he thinks Mingi was worth it, there was no denying the pain that would come from it. 

He just needed to hold on a little longer. It was okay.

He shoves his hand in his back pocket, tightening a fist to distract from the burning.

“Yeah. There hasn’t been any lately, did you notice? I think I’m gonna find out why that is. Maybe the currents change with the seasons or something.” 

“Hopefully, you find something out, then.” Mingi nods, his eyes lingering into Seonghwa for a moment, before he breaks and looks at the floor, thinking he’s taking too much of his time as it is. “Okay, I’m not gonna keep you. I’ll see you soon, Hwa.”

And Seonghwa likes the nickname so much that he decides that Mingi was most definitely worth the pain clawing at the surface of his skin, begging for water, aching to be among the waves again. He steps forward with a smile, leaning so that his mouth is close to his ear, dropping his voice to a whisper.

“Don’t stop seeing me, okay? Come to the beach tomorrow.”

He kisses Mingi’s cheek, stamping the memory of their first real date onto his skin, before stepping back with another grin, and leaving.

~★~

Mingi gets home when the sky is black, Yunho still not back from hanging out with their friends. 

He left a note and a recipe for the instant ramen packages they have in their pantry, and despite being completely full off of today, Mingi takes one out and cooks it anyway, adding the egg to the side just like Yunho said.

It kind of bothers him that Yunho mentions the meat in the fridge to add as an option. He didn’t know why. But he made it without, regardless.

He goes into the bathroom to decide what he wanted to do first after eating, the bowl warming his palm as he looks at the sink. He usually brushes his teeth first, and then showers quickly so as to not get too groggy to do anything after.

But he wanted to try something different today, to maybe get out of his comfort zone without needing Seonghwa by his side.

He takes a seat on the side of his bathtub, staring into the drain as if it would swallow his worries as easily as it did water from the shower, ignoring how the bowl began to get too hot on his palm. 

He had a chance to do it today. 

And there was the possibility of a shallow hindrance to come up, maybe something along the lines of Yunho not being home, just in case he needed help. Another one would be that he didn’t have any bubble bars from the cosmetics shop a few cities away, so lying in plain water was _just_ weird enough for him not to do it.

He grips his ramen bowl in his hand, reaching over to the faucet as his thoughts were sticky and webbing all of his worries together in the middle of his head. What if he drowned?

_What if he died again?_

Mingi swallows, thinking back to what Seonghwa would say to help him if he were at the beach. He remembers his voice, tasting like warm honey at the tip of his tongue, sweet and whole and silky, and he thinks he will be okay as long as Seonghwa was here. 

And he wasn’t, but the blurry memory of him today on the Ferris wheel would be enough of a team for him.

Mingi sets his bowl on the counter, stopping the drain and standing up from the side of the tub, watching the water fill up the small expanse of white ceramic. It caused ripples in the clear water, like the ones at South Lip except it was empty and there was no pretty boy amongst the waves this time.

It was just him today. 

He could do it.

Seonghwa’s voice echoes in the back of his head, enticing him, almost pushing him into the tub as if he really had been behind him. Mingi swallows and feels that same shade of nerves over him that came earlier today, and while he shrugs off his button-down shirt, his fingers on the button of his jeans, he thinks of Seonghwa and his voice on the beach, remembers the song he liked to hum. 

His mind feels like static, frenzying in a mess of silvers and greys, antimatter making up his chest as he takes off his clothes and the water rises, his eyes never leaving the tub. Seonghwa’s voice runs through him like breezes through stonehenges, filling up his spaces and passing the time as the rest of his clothes pile onto the floor beside his shirt.

He stops the faucet once the water seems high enough, remembering the last time he had a bath. 

He thinks to be taking one now, after all this time, would make his mother cry. 

_What if he died again?_

He gets in, the water way too hot for him to really handle in the way his skin cries a cherry red as soon as it hits him. Steam wavers on the surface of the water as he lets his body sink in, wincing at the burning itch on his lower back, submerging himself in both the water and the hums in the back of his head. In less time than he really anticipated, he is neck-deep in the bathtub, his feet hitting the other side as if to stop him from falling and not getting back up, his neck sensitive to the heat of the water.

His heart beats loudly in his ears — the only sound he could hear anymore save for his humming — keeping him calm and grounded while he sinks in the water. If he could go under and come back up, even if it was just once, maybe he would be okay.

Maybe this was what he needed.

He stares at the water again, trying to find any barriers that he needed to break before he plunged underneath, to break down his own walls from being too scared to take risks. Little kids go under the water, adults and teenagers do it all the time. They do it just fine.

Mingi can do it. 

Go. _Go._

He shuts his eyes and takes a big breath that hurts his ribcage and fills the pit of his stomach, before sliding further in the tub and letting his body relax while hot water cascades over his face. He thinks of the ocean in the midnight behind his eyelids, thinks of the seaweed and the salt and the sun and the saccharine drip of the watermelon popsicles he used to love so much. 

He thinks of Seonghwa again, thinks of swimming with him and finding pretty seashells to compare his eyes to, of hearing him sing as freely as he spoke. 

He was okay.

He breathes out, feeling bubbles tickle the tip of his nose as the world slows down, the clouds above him trickling while the flowers in the front yard stop billowing. It’s silent under here, save for the overwhelming beats of his heart in his chest. 

Mingi wonders if the sea was the same. It might not be any different. 

He counts, to lose himself while still being present.

One, two, three, four...six, seven, eight, nine, one. 

He was okay. He was _okay_.

A slight ache burns the lining of his lungs, but Mingi doesn’t feel anxious anymore. 

Instead, he wonders how long he could hold his breath. 

Every day, he’s been so comfortable with breathing. It was easy to do. People didn’t think about it, they just _did_ it. Maybe, in some twisted way, he wanted to go back to that day on the beach, when he took things like this for granted. Maybe, he wanted to be a part of the people who were breezed over in the news articles, wanted for them to know that he knew what it felt like, and he knew he took advantage of the thing they needed the most in that instant. 

One, two, three, four, five...seven, one, two.

Time ticked so slowly under here. He could’ve gotten used to it.

And as the urge to come back up stings the back of his throat, Mingi stays underneath. His mind wanders to Seonghwa and the beach, to the pier and the Ferris wheel, and the butterflies in his stomach flutter wildly as the water feels airy around him, like the peachy clouds that befall the sunset sometimes.

Seonghwa had such a strange effect. 

One, two, three, four...six...eight, nine...two, three, four.

There’s a muffled sound within the water somewhere, but it wasn’t his heart beating or his dreams becoming hallucinations. He opens his eyes to see a frantic and blurred Yunho above the water, reaching in to grab at him and pull him up. Mingi quickly sits up, covering himself as water streams from his hair and over his mouth, Yunho’s eyes blown wide and glossy, kneeling beside the tub.

“What the fuck were you _doing_ , Mingi?”

Mingi’s head rings like sirens at Yunho’s face, coming back down to earth and he realizes that maybe he shouldn’t have waited so long to come back up. 

Looking over his face, he feels terrible. 

“I was just...I wanted to try to take a bath today.”

Yunho sighs heavily and frowns, smoothing a hand over his face and shaking his head, the only sounds being the uneven drip of the water back into the tub and Mingi’s breathing, shallow and shaking and scared. He’d been ripped out of his serenity, and he doesn’t know if he wanted to go back to it knowing he worried Yunho like that. 

His chest had caved at the thought, Yunho struggling to breathe from how terrified he’d been to find Mingi like that.

“I called for you when I got home and...you didn’t answer. I-I thought you fucking...you _drowned_ again or something! Fucking _hell_ , Mingi.” Yunho stands up, and Mingi could tell he was fighting back, in the way he looked like he was about to cry as he tried to catch his breath.

Yunho didn’t do well with stuff like this. He should have remembered. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you’d be home yet. I didn’t mean to scare you.” 

Yunho’s chest feels too small for the air around him as he swallows and blinks at Mingi, his hair flat against his head and his eyes sorry, but Yunho knew he shouldn’t be. If anything, Yunho shouldn’t be treating him like a special case. In any other situation, he was a normal guy taking a bath.

Yunho should have treated him like one.

It was fine.

“N-no. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that. I’m sorry.” Yunho nods, his warm eyes flicking back and forth between Mingi’s own, and there’s that reassurance that Mingi fell in love with since they were kids that brings him back as he runs a hand through his hair, stressed.

“I won’t do it again,” Mingi says, and Yunho shakes his head. 

“It’s okay. I just thought…” He sighs, blinks a few times as if to clear his head of the memory. “It’s okay.”

And as Yunho leaves into his own bedroom, Mingi is haunted by Yunho’s worries and doesn’t enjoy his bath much after that, just like he thought he wouldn’t. 


	7. grotto

Mingi comes up to Yeosang’s house when the sun is in the middle of setting, still feeling alone while an ill sensation resonates in the pit of his stomach.

His hands were set carefully in his pockets, feeling like an alien once he got closer to the stone walkway leading to his front door, yet the sky somehow felt familiar in the way the sun seemed to follow behind him, keeping him company on the way over here. 

It was friendly and forgiving as it cast a powdered magenta across the sky, streaking clementines and golds into the clouds as the last remnants of cerulean trickled out of the horizon. Mingi squinted a bit at its reflection as he slid through two parked cars cramped in Yeosang’s driveway, passing by a black motorcycle with the helmet hanging off of the handles.

It even _looked_ friendly, as if nobody would ever dare to think of stealing it or messing with it.

Mingi loved to spot this particular motorcycle because it was Wooyoung’s and it was _cool._ He wanted to be a little cool too, so whenever someone asked, he could say _yeah, I’ve seen that motorcycle before,_ or he could tell someone at the party that he didn’t know: _oh,_ **_that_ ** _motorcycle? That’s Wooyoung’s, one of my best friends._

And sometimes Mingi got jealous of Wooyoung because he knew how to do things that Mingi never got around to doing. On top of being able to snake through cars on the freeway, he also knew how to knit, mix cocktails if he took enough shots, drive stick shift whenever Jongho allowed him in the front seat of his car, amongst other things.

Mingi thinks one of the best things Wooyoung knew how to do, however, was love. 

He fell in love with San, loved him and everything he was building himself up into. He loved flowers and the sky past 7pm and the way the beach rolled and splashed navy onto the wet shoreline some nights. He loved the way puppies barked and the way birds flew away from powerlines while stopped at the light before main street, spreading silhouettes of their wings over the town as if to shield them from the rest of the world and Mingi thought they were pretty once too.

He did it like it was nothing, loving giggles that bounced off the stars at night, loving hugs that tethered him to the earth, paint splatters over white walls of brilliant blues and pinks.

Wooyoung knew how to do things that Mingi was afraid of. 

Maybe that’s why he admired him so much. 

His mind wanders to San, then to Seonghwa for a moment, and he suddenly gets embarrassed as he makes his way to the door.

The breeze washes over him, gentle as it threads its fingers through the pink dye in his hair, and he is careful not to step in the dirt as he follows the walkway to the front door. He opens it, feeling the muffled kick drum of the stereo vibrate into his skin and spill freedom into his soul, his heart beating in time with the sidechain’s tempo. 

Mingi was very shy, liked to keep to himself and sometimes was scared of talking to others, even his own roommate, so being here made him nervous. He dreamed like he was always sleeping and lived like he would never wake, yet, he kept things close to his heart so that only he could hold onto it.

And it was a little selfish, but still. 

There was something about the pretty universes you make up in your head that made Mingi believe.

He didn’t know in exactly what yet. But he liked to believe in it.

He opens the door, and immediately is blasted with the EDM that had been clawing at the front door and banging on the windows, cracking the world apart as he slips in through the small crack he made, trying not to draw attention to himself. He is doused in red light, people made of crimsons and carnations and scarlets as they moved, swimming through each other and dancing and drinking and living.

Mingi is reminded of high school and all the parties he never went to, but couldn’t say he missed out on.

He hated parties.

“Mingi! Thank god you came!”

Underneath the music, Mingi’s attention is drawn to a dark sweater that looks almost black against the red lights, the sleeves pooled over dainty fingers as silver rings glinted and a pearly smile radiated.

Mingi waves, small enough for no one to catch it, but it got Hongjoong’s attention all the same and Mingi watched as he moved through the crowd to get to him, pushing up his specs as his eyes were set on him.

Mingi always liked Hongjoong.

He didn’t know what drew him towards him when they first met. Maybe it was his pretty nose, or the way he looked into you and convinced you to smile a bit wider, to tell him more about yourself when you didn’t want to, crumbling down walls with just a glance. Hongjoong was very attractive in more ways than one, and Mingi always liked to be around him, sometimes used to think about kissing him under the oak tree beside his apartment.

And then he would get shy and feel stupid. Even now.

“How come you and Yunho didn’t come together?” He leans up to his ear, and it caused a shade of goosebumps to trickle down Mingi’s spine at how different it was from the breezes outside.

“He had work. He’s coming later.”

Hongjoong nods, and as he pulls back, a smile creeps onto his face, looking into Mingi as mischief pools beneath his eyes.

That damn smile was something of dreams, the feeling of waking up and wanting so badly to go back to it. Like the way moonlight softly kisses dark ponds at night, how mist runs over desolate streets or the flicker of a single lightbulb in the attic, it caused him to be nervous and jittery and inquisitive. That smile caused an addictive terror in Mingi that made him want to explore, made an uneasy feeling bubble in the pit of his stomach while wanting desperately to see exactly what caused that stupid smile on his face. He knew he had something up his sleeve.

It kind of reminded him of Seonghwa.

The room sways.

“We’re playing a drinking game. Come.”

There it is.

Hongjoong’s hand slips into Mingi’s, and before he really has a chance to react, he is being pulled through the small slots in between bodies he didn’t recognize and faces he’s rather not. Hands and arms and sweaty backs slip over his clothes as the red light fades in and out of his vision, keeping a secure hold on Hongjoong and thinking about seeing his friends again. 

It’s been less than two days since he’s seen them, but he's looking forward to it as if the days had been years.

There is still an uneasy feeling as he thinks about Seonghwa, thinks about how he’s doing and what, if he was at the beach again tonight.

Maybe he should go see him. 

He is led up stairs and past closed doors and through a dark hallway, before the shadows and breached and he's inside the guest room.

“Mingi!” 

Wooyoung lights up at him once Hongjoong gets him there. It makes Yeosang look at him, while Jongho had San under his arm and was laughing at something he said. There's a dark blue bottle in the middle of their circle and small shot glasses at everyone’s feet, different shapes and designs plastered on the front.

A typical party scene.

He smiles at them as he pushes his specs up again, feeling the most confidence with them. He thinks, if they were up for it, he would like to explore the entire world with them one day.

One day.

“Mingi!”

His heart beats in anticipation as Hongjoong leads him beside Jongho, taking a seat in the empty space near San’s feet. The lights in here are not red, but everyone is moving funny as if Mingi was still downstairs, and he thinks it’s a combination of the music and the high of being in a crowded space that makes him feel like his head is empty.

“Hello.”

Hongjoong lets go and Mingi's hand aches for him.

“Where’s your other half?” Jongho asks, letting San go only to grab his shot glass and pour the liquid from the bottle into it.

“Hey! That’s for the game, you...you cheater!” Yeosang points to Jongho, his hand weak and barely there, as Jongho downs the shot.

He is drunk already, cheeks puffed and pink and his hair is messy like brambles. Mingi smiles.

“He's coming from work.” He says, and Jongho hands him his shot glass, spilling sharp alcohol over the sides a little bit and it makes a splotch of black on the knee of his jeans.

Mingi truly hated the taste of alcohol. It was terrible to him, and the aftereffect of his chest burning after the shot made him resent liquor in every way. But he was at a party, and as bad as this kind of thinking was, he had to drink.

Just a little.

He downs the shot without thinking more about it, resisting the urge to cough as it slices up his throat on the way down, and hands the glass back to Jongho, a smile of sunrises on his face at Mingi’s reaction to it.

“It’s good to see you again, Mingi. You always leave every chance you get lately.” Wooyoung tells him, and Mingi wants to smile and tell him some lame excuse as to why he always left them as quickly as possible.

But he feels guilt in his chest instead, and while Wooyoung wavers, he can’t tell if it’s the alcohol or his empty stomach that makes him feel ill.

Mingi just wants to go see Seonghwa.

“Sorry. I just…” Mingi makes a face and looks at the soles of Wooyoung’s shoes, trying to find an excuse in the rubber.

“Hey, it’s fine! You have a life. I’m just very happy to see you now.”

Wooyoung offers his best smile and it puts Mingi at ease for a moment.

“Why are you always in a rush, anyway?” Hongjoong asks, a harmless question with an even more harmless answer, but Mingi feels like he is being pierced with safety pins as their eyes glance over him again and again, expecting an answer.

What kind of answer should he give, though?

“He’s probably seeing someone,” Yeosang says, and it makes San gasps and Jongho’s eyes raise, his cheeks high like full moons as he smiles at him.

“You have a boyfriend?”

His head then wanders to Seonghwa again, wanders back to the seashells that rumbled under his hums and the waves that held their secrets as they tumbled to give them back to the offing of the sea. He wanders back to the weightless feeling he got around him, at the pretty pitches that stuck to the top of his head when they rose and sank to the bottom of his heart when they fell.

Seonghwa was so beautiful. He needed to go see him again today. 

What the hell was wrong with him?

“N-no,” Mingi says, shaking his head, and he wishes that he was in the red lights downstairs because it would hide his blush better than the normal ones in here.

San lifted his head from where it was resting on Wooyoung’s lap, his eyebrows raised in curiosity as his eyes gleamed. “Does he go to our school? What’s his name?”

It was then Mingi realized he truly didn’t know much about Seonghwa. He was very closed off about school, work, his family. And all those times that Mingi had ever asked anything about it, he would change the subject or switch it over to him. Seonghwa knew more about Mingi than he did.

He doesn’t know if that should upset him or not.

“I do not have a boyfriend. Let’s play this drinking game, huh?”

Hongjoong smiles again, and he pours his own shot glass full of the alcohol (Mingi deeming it tequila, but everything tasted like tequila if you didn't drink).

While the bottle is passed around and emptied into their shot glasses, Hongjoong pats his hands on the hardwood floor beneath him, calling both attention and silence without saying a word. He commands eyes just as easily as he deflected them and Mingi thinks that’s weird.

He simpers and his eyes glisten with chaos, immediately going to Wooyoung.

“Never have I ever fucked someone in a car.”

Mingi blushes at the thought, and once he sees Wooyoung reach for his full shot glass, he looks at the floor and thinks of ice. He got so embarrassed about things like this. There was no way he was going to make it the rest of the night.

“Nasty.” Yeosang makes a face and Wooyoung laughs, while San quickly downs a shot after Jongho, his nose dusted with strawberries.

Mingi does, however, end up taking two shots before Yunho finally comes bursting through the door, out of breath and brilliant against the dim lights of the bedroom. Mingi then realizes just how dreary it truly was when the music was muffled downstairs and your bones felt like jelly. 

Maybe he shouldn’t have come. The beach would be a little more calming.

No, he shouldn’t think like that. Why was he thinking like that? Mingi used to love spending time with his friends. 

He still does. Still loves to.

He loved spending time with them when Yunho came especially. He loved spending time with them when the acidic remnants of shot after shot settled in his throat (all because of Jongho and Yeosang kept pushing him to _loosen up!_ ) and made his heart float on empty confidence and a headache to kick at his temples in the morning. He loved spending time with them when they went back downstairs to dance, and Yeosang was pressed against his back while Hongjoong spun him in the middle of the crowd to music that deserved livelier movement from them.

Hongjoong was pretty when he was bathed in red, when his eyes were glassy and he had a surly smile that twisted high and out through the window. He was daring, just like the sun’s heat, and Mingi thinks that if he were to stray too close to him like he is now, he would burn.

This was good. Mingi was good.

He just wished he hadn’t felt so sick as Hongjoong danced against him. It was pressing and violent, like the first grey clouds that blush across the sky before a raging thunderstorm. There was something in the pit of his stomach that he just could not keep down the more he thinks of that beach, the more he thinks of Hongjoong and the tree outside of his apartment.

Even now, as his friends move slowly against the fast pace of the music booking against his ears, as the red light creates pretty shapes over San’s face while shadows dance against his skin, he feels sick.

Like he was missing out on something that never involved him to begin with, and it was pulling, stronger the more he tried to resist.

Mingi shuts his eyes as the music rattles his chest, listening to the sea of voices that simmered into monotonous murmurs. He sways with Hongjoong, feels warmth and people bouncing against him, bumping into him and breathing alcohol onto his skin.

He hated parties.

He slowly erupts from the inside out, filling over the brim, and suddenly, he feels too hot to be here. Suddenly, he thinks of the beach, and how beautiful Seonghwa sounded and just how fucking horrible it was that he caught him at a beach where so many people had disappeared. It was ironic, how Mingi was beginning to love the sound of the waves he hated.

So much so that he needed to go there today. At least once.

Mingi feels a sweat blossom underneath his collar, opting for wearing a thinner button-down tonight just for this reason. He had been fine up until now. 

What gives?

He opens his eyes, his chest feeling tight and his stomach too loose, and before he has a chance to really think, to really _react,_ his legs carry him to the front yard, throat jumping and his mouth feels small.

He’s bent over near Yeosang’s mailbox, holding his glasses in one hand and emptying his stomach into the grass while a faint tune of the waves plays in the back of his head.

“Mingi? Mingi, are you okay?” 

Wooyoung’s voice is soft like downy, high and pretty, and Mingi thinks he wouldn’t have heard it had he breathed too loudly. He hears his feet crunching in the grass behind him, and Mingi takes a deep breath as the tinge of alcohol sets heavy on his tongue, making a face at the taste.

His stomach churns.

“Yeah. Yeah, I think…” Mingi swallows and grimaces, placing his specs back on the bridge of his nose with trembling fingers, Wooyoung’s face a little clearer. He would be okay. “I think I had too much to drink.”

“Did you eat before coming?” He asks, and Mingi studies how his black hair curled neatly over his forehead, how his honeyed skin looked pretty as it soaked up the last bits of gold from the sunset behind him.

His eyes were so warm and concerned. Mingi almost wished he could tell Wooyoung he _was_ sick. That would be a more convincing reason, a more favorable situation than what was really going on.

He’s never fallen ill at the thought of drowning since he was six. It’s been a while since them. He should be over it by now, with all the times he’s been in the water.

Was it the fear of drowning, or something else? 

“No.” Mingi takes another deep breath through his nose, slowing down his heartbeat and filling up the spaces in his chest.

He’s _got_ to pull it together.

“Well, even then...a few shots shouldn’t make you keel over like that. Are you sure you’re okay?” Wooyoung asks, and Mingi feels guilt in his bones when he looks over at him, at the tiny encouraging smile he has on his face and the hand on his back that was pushing him to _be honest._

He couldn’t. It was harder, in this case.

“Yeah. I think I’m gonna stay out here a bit.” Mingi doesn’t watch his reaction, but he feels Wooyoung’s other hand squeeze his arm and that was all the reassurance he felt he needed.

“Okay. Tell us if you need anything.” He says. “It’s okay to lean on us everyone _once_ in a while.”

Mingi smiles, because he knew Wooyoung was aware of how much he relied on himself for everything and it sometimes poised as a threat for Mingi to never follow through with what he needed from others. 

He seemed to always be out of reach.

“I know. Thanks, Woo.”

Wooyoung winks at him with a pretty smile and Mingi thinks he was perfect for motorcycles, and he watches him disappear behind Yeosang’s front door, a snippet of a different EDM track piercing his hearing before he’s left alone again, the wind dragging heavy over his skin.

Mingi tilts his head back for the wind to cool over him, reminding him of the cool doldrums that sweep the shores of South Lip as the sun warms his throat.

He really was starting to hate how much he felt like he needed to go back and see him. Talking to Seonghwa felt like climbing trees during the summer, or riding a bike down an empty road by the time the sun set. He was freedom and risk, with the way he practically drew the waves towards him and made Mingi almost think the water was safe as long as he was in it. He smiled like Saturday nights and his touches felt like blooming flower petals against his skin, delicate and silky and wonderful. 

He felt chained down here. He needed to go.

Mingi loved to be around him. And as he looks down the road at the stop sign, reflecting the sun and his worries and his splitting conscience at the fact that he had the power to go see him today, he can’t help but cave in.

He needs to go _see_ him.

~★~

Mingi spots the clearing down the street, where the trees seemed to never change color, harboring emeralds even in autumn, remembering the way to the beach from here. If he went down that road, he would pass Wooyoung and San’s apartment, and the adoption center would be about a block to the right. 

He just needed to remember.

Seonghwa’s voice is still in the back of his head, lulling and enticing, and Mingi thinks it’s almost stupid how his heart picks up at the thought of going to see him. He realizes that, when it comes down to it, he barely knew Seonghwa. He didn’t really have an idea of where he went to school or where he worked. He didn’t know if he had a family back home or when his birthday was. 

Seonghwa was almost entirely built on assumptions, and Mingi cannot decipher if he was attracted to him based off of his own version of him, or for Seonghwa himself.

But their dates had to mean something. They did. Mingi’s head was too jumbled to figure out what it was.

He felt bad for leaving his friends at the party. He did. He didn’t want them to think he didn’t like them, but...something about that fucking beach has him halfway there in less time than he expected. His legs feel like pulp as the adoption center comes into view, an image of a beagle puppy covered in dirt and wear as the paint was chipping and the gusts of wind around it even sounded lonely. 

Mingi sometimes wondered what was really going on in there, if anyone really adopted or if it was just as desolate as he imagined. 

The waves are less noisy than yesterday, and the closer he got to their music, the less pressure was on his stomach and the lighter his heart felt. 

Almost like he belonged here. 

He finds Seonghwa sitting on the shore again, Mingi smiling when he hears him humming to himself and carefully playing with the water as if it was made of diamonds around him. He thinks he’s just as pretty in the evenings as he was in the afternoon and in the morning and every twilight in between as he comes closer to him.

“Hwa!”

Seonghwa stops humming and turns to him, surprised as if he hadn’t expected Mingi to show up at all. Mingi nearly runs to him, his feet sinking into the sand and throwing the threat of tripping in his face, but he was fueled on adrenaline and his gas tank was nearly overfilled at the sight of Seonghwa here today. 

Seonghwa stands up as well from where he was in the water, black swim trunks glistening with water as it skids off of his skin, sticking to his shoulders like snowflakes in December. 

“Hi, baby.”

And the pet name makes his stomach flip as he meets him in the water, his arms open for him to run into. Water soaks into his sweater and the front of his jeans, but the uncomfortable feeling quickly dissipates when Seonghwa hugs him tightly and kisses his forehead, the sea cold as it scours the bottom of his jeans and the waves barrel roll to the shore as if to give them their prized privacy on the beach tonight.

“I missed you,” Mingi says, and Seonghwa smiles and pulls back, smoothing a wet hand through Mingi’s pink hair and taking him in.

As he looks over his soft cheeks and pretty lips upturned in a delicate smile, he thinks that this would be harder for him. Mingi was quickly becoming Seonghwa’s favorite person out of them all. 

“I missed you, too. I was hoping you’d come today.” He tells him, and he gently takes Mingi’s hand and looks towards the sea, where the storm seemed to be brewing for hours, darker than the rest of the water. 

Mingi thinks it was probably colder over there, too. Freezing, if he was alone.

“Of course, I would.” 

As he looks at the sea before him, Mingi head floats back to the other day in the bathtub, and he tilts his head, biting the inside of his bottom lip slowly as he projects his thoughts into the water. Maybe he would do better with Seonghwa actually here today. 

Maybe…

“H-hey...can we...try something? You and me.”

Seonghwa blinks, silent and waiting for him and Mingi doesn’t know if he would ever keep up with someone who was so patient with him.

“I wanna go swimming. Like...really swimming.” Mingi tells him, swallowing and not believing his own words when they come out, tasting like lemon rinds.

Bitter and suffocating, but he meant what he said. He thinks that if he kept himself accountable, he would actually have to go through with it.

He would _have_ to. This was the real thing. There was no such thing as putting your feet at the end of it to act as a barrier to stop you from dying, to stop you from floating away and never coming back. Mingi could have gotten lost in here if he wasn’t careful.

Amongst thinking of the worst-case scenarios, Mingi tries to resonate with the water as much as he could before he passed one of their trials. There seemed to be many, but he just needed to get through this one.

“Are you sure?” Seonghwa asks, his eyebrows coming together and it reminds Mingi of the trees he would ride his bike underneath, seemingly endless and it made Mingi wonder about what the rest of the world had to offer.

“Yes,” Mingi says quickly, turning to face Seonghwa and practically dragging him with him to the sea, his chest filling with cold water and his heart thumping slowly as a wave rolls and injects foam into the current. “I want to go now before I chicken out.”

“But you’re in regular clothes.”

“Yeah. It’s okay.”

“What if—”

_“Hwa.”_

Seonghwa sighs before giving in and following him, their footsteps heavy in the water and making a sound of rain around them as they lifted their feet, Mingi’s waterlogged shoes getting completely ruined the further they strayed from the surface. He would just have to throw them out.

It’s not like he’d miss them.

“Okay.” 

Seonghwa stays behind Mingi as he slowly wades towards a deeper part of the beach, his hand slightly trembling in Seonghwa’s, but he feels anchored in a way that makes him feel like he has to go. He’s got to push himself.

He would be fine.

Mingi is quiet, but it’s when they’re chest-deep in the water that his heart sinks and his mind begins to melt and he thinks he’s going to have a fucking panic attack, right in the middle of the beach.

This was a big mistake. His head was fighting to just be okay, to be calm as long as he didn’t go under. This was much easier to do in the bathtub. 

The water felt like a vise around his chest, constricting him in a way that it really felt like he couldn’t move, and the waves around him threatened to smooth over his head and take him away again. They jeered at him, loud and pressing, evil smiles within the foam of the shoreline.

“Fuck, _fuck_.” Mingi’s chest fills with electricity and he doesn’t know if he could breathe, staring at the black water surrounding him, so close to his face and he was so scared of slipping and drowning again, his vision kind of blurring behind his specs and he felt like crying as the current pushed the water to jump towards his chin. 

He can’t breathe well. 

Mingi is struggling, and Seonghwa pulls on his hand to get him away from the deeper part of the ocean, dragging him through the water as he stares into the water, feeling helpless as his head is ignited with the fires of the looming panic bubbling under his skin. 

“Mingi, we can go back. We don’t have to swim today.” Seonghwa says, surprising himself for thinking this would be easier than he thought. He didn’t like seeing Mingi so scared like this. “Let’s go back.”

“No. _No!_ I have to...go, I just...can’t….I need…” Mingi tries, his breath shallow and it truly feels like he is dying all over again as the water seems to meld with the sky and swallow him whole. “Please...help me, _please.”_

“Okay, okay.”

Seonghwa gets it, going close to Mingi again, but this time, wades in front of him so that he isn't staring into the water. He lets go of his hand, opting for snaking his arms around Mingi, holding him loosely just in case it really didn’t help him at all.

“It’s not so bad, Min. We’re okay.” 

Mingi tries to breathe, bringing his own hands up to hold onto Seonghwa’s shoulders as if he would save him from the ocean. He felt so dumb, clinging onto Seonghwa and staring into the water. Everyone swims in the ocean at night, it was a normal thing.

He hated how hard it was for him. 

Seonghwa brings his free hand up from the water to wipe the tears from Mingi’s cheek, flushed and warm and it surprised Mingi to feel Seonghwa actually wipe them away. He hadn’t known he’d been crying.

He felt so _dumb._

“You’re okay. Tell me what you’re thinking about.” 

Mingi feels compressed in the inky currents around him, the slight pull of the water splashing against his shoulders reminding him of his childhood again, all the good parts about the ocean, all the bad. He looks at the water, but screws his eyes shut quickly, hiding his face in Seonghwa's shoulder and trying not to shake so much while Seonghwa holds him like thin glass, like he would sink to the bottom of the sea and shatter in the sand had he not held onto him.

“I’m scared.” 

“I know. But you made it this far.” Seonghwa lightly kisses Mingi’s sticky cheek twice, trying not to wince at the pressure of Mingi’s nails on his shoulder, and he turns them and Mingi is suddenly facing the shore, kicking sand up around them like the stars that liked to settle into his hair at night.

Mingi doesn't say anything, and instead, lets the water pull at his sweater and soak into his jeans. The world hushes around them and he feels like the goldfish in the plastic bag again. It was here when he knew exactly what Seonghwa was saying that one day. 

He didn’t like the feeling so much anymore.

“You wanna try floating? I’ll stay with you.” Seonghwa sets another kiss to Mingi’s shoulder this time, his voice soft like the rustle of autumn leaves, and as Mingi feels his chest slowly rise and fall against his own, he calms down a bit, trying to match his breathing and slow his heartbeat. 

One, two, three, four...six, seven, one. 

He tries to force his head into thinking this was just like the bathtub. 

Mingi swallows, finally shaking his head and easing his grip on Seonghwa, his suggestion bouncing around his head and tying his thoughts together. He was a mess and he felt submerged underwater already, his nose stuffy and his eyelashes holding cold tears.

Come on, _come on._

“I’m gonna...I'm going under.”

Seonghwa raises his eyebrows at that, and Mingi lets go and he suddenly feels cold. He watches Seonghwa breathe again, pressing his hands to his chest to silently emphasize his point, suspended in the water for a moment, before he tries not to hesitate again. Seonghwa lets go and Mingi floats away a bit.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, yet.”

“I want to be normal, Seonghwa. Everyone goes to the beach.” Mingi pushes his specs up his nose and his eyebrows come together again, like lightning bolts splitting trees, and Seonghwa understands how much it would mean for him to do it. “I want to be normal.” 

“Okay, baby. We’ll do it together, then.”

Mingi takes a breath, and then a bigger, chest-aching one, and slips beneath the water’s surface, his specs floating above his head and making his nose feel funny. Seonghwa sees him wrapped in the filtered moonlight beneath the surface, catching his glasses for him as they float off of his face before he follows suit.

It was so nice being underwater. Mingi would love it here.

Mingi can’t really see as well as he wanted to, but he makes out Seonghwa’s blurry face where the moonlight blankets through the water and fanned out into the darkness behind him. Mingi is trapped in the clouds again, his heart the only sound besides the bubbles he made from waving his arms, trying to keep himself down here. 

The water wasn't so bad.

Seonghwa smiles at him, with teeth and all that make Mingi’s heart skyrocket past Pluto, and he can’t help but flush and feel like he belongs with him down here. And he thinks it’s crazy, how he just came from a party where he got too sick to keep a few shots down and now he’s thinking of exploring the deep sea, but it was okay for now.

He was okay.

Mingi watches the bubbles that escape from his nose as he breathes out a bit, wavering the image of Seonghwa a little before he’s back again, his blonde hair fanning out like dandelion petals when you blow them out.

And Mingi thinks Seonghwa was made up of many wishes, silent desires blown into dandelions, as they dance and carry secrets across the city. 

Seonghwa holds out his free hand for Mingi to take, and he does, feeling the water pulse between their hands as he laces their fingers together. He looks over Mingi’s face, thinking he was too pretty to really be spending the remainder of the night with him, but he thinks he was lucky enough to catch him out here when he did, lucky enough for Mingi to have a softer heart than most. 

He looks over the pointed slope in his nose, his cherry blossom lips and the way his curious eyes glimmered like ore at the bottom of the earth, even underwater.

It would definitely be harder for him. But he didn’t want to think about that until the time truly came.

For now, he would admire him for as long as he had him.

And as the waves leap over their heads, as they break the water’s surface and Mingi’s exuberant and hysterical giggles fill the night sky, Seonghwa thinks that maybe he wasn’t really as lucky as he thought.

~★~

“Mingi! _Mingi!”_

Yunho’s heart is burning as it races with him in his throat, sprinting as fast as he can to Mingi, lying on the shore of the beach with his back against the sand, his face cooling in the moonlight. His chest was rising and falling steadily, body lifeless while the waves rushed in and patted the heels of his shoes.

Yunho drops to his knees, his vision red and blurry as he looks over Mingi’s face, hair wet and sticking to his forehead while his clothes clung onto him like a second skin. He was alleviated in the slightest bit after seeing his chest, knowing he was okay, but the ease was quickly crushed in the way he found him so close to the water, known for killing him once and had the greatest potential to do it again. 

“Mingi!”

Mingi stirs, opening his eyes slowly and taking in the sound of the waves beneath his feet. He looks over at Yunho, his eyes worried and his cheeks flushed as he tries to catch his breath, running a hand through his hair, like hydrangeas. 

“What the hell is going on with you, Mingi?” Yunho asks, and his tone was more concerned than anything else, brash like a grater against Mingi’s skin. He winces. “Were you in the water this whole time?”

Mingi sits up on his elbows, the moon releasing a faint mångata in front of them, laid out like a red carpet, beckoning them out to sea again in its ivory gossamer. Mingi pictures himself running on the water just to see where the moon led him.

“Did Seonghwa leave?” He asks, remembering them coming back to shore and talking until he felt sleepier than he really should have for the time they spent together.

He fell asleep on Seonghwa, he remembers that much. 

“Goddamnit, Mingi.” Yunho looks over his shoulder, then to his right, as if searching for any traces of the boy in question. Seonghwa’s name rubbed Yunho the wrong way as it was, like a surge of electricity under his skin and he was suddenly burning with irritation at the mention. “What is _happening_ with you?”

Mingi stands up, his arms weak and brittle, his clothes damp and cold and a shiver racks through his body to show just how long he’s been out here, fingertips freezing.

“I came here to swim. I was able to do it this time. I was okay!” Mingi smiles as he looks down at Yunho on his knees, remembering going underwater and Seonghwa’s face, but he wasn’t sharing the same excitement as he was.

Mingi can’t really read his expression from how the moon had painted navy shadows over his face, but he assumes, with how silence befell the earth at Yunho’s command, that it wasn’t a good one. He felt like he was in trouble again.

“So you left the party just to come here and swim? Why didn’t you tell anyone? Why didn’t you go home first to change, then? Why are you doing things like this so late at night?”

“Yunho—”

“And why do you care so much about Seonghwa? Is he making you do this? Why did he leave you out here by yourself?”

“No. I wanted to. I asked him to come with me into the water.” Mingi looks at the waves, eyes curious. “He helps.”

Yunho sighs heavily, staring at his hands being swallowed by the wet sand, his chest full. He feels so conflicted; Mingi was doing things that he thought he wouldn’t, and while he knew he was supposed to be proud of him for it, he couldn’t help but worry when finding him washed up on the beach at midnight after he was supposed to be at a party with him earlier. 

“You’re worrying me.” Yunho’s voice is delicate, knowing he shouldn’t have said it, but he’s been worried for him for the past two weeks, his stomach always heavy with the fear that he wouldn’t see him again after those stupid walks. He didn’t know what he was doing out here by himself. 

“I don’t want to lose you _again,_ Mingi. And it feels like I am. Tell me how to help you. _Please_.”

Mingi gets on his knees again in front of him, taking his hand, still slightly wet from the water and Yunho feels sick at how calm he sounded against the rushing waves, how close he was since that day.

“Yu, I’m alright. I’m finally facing my fears. I did well today!”

Yunho sighs through his nose, shaking his head and holding onto Mingi’s hand fully to take him back home. He stares at it, and for the first time in a while, Yunho felt like he was holding onto a stranger. He felt like he found someone on the beach at random, and out of the kindness of his heart, was going to take him home and help him, rather than his roommate. 

The person holding his hand did not feel like Mingi. 

But he decides that maybe, he was just overthinking. Mingi might have been right. It was good that he was doing things like this on his own. If not now, when?

It was just worrisome, is all.

“Okay. Okay.” Yunho says, more to calm himself down, to keep himself steady, trying to forget about Mingi on the shore today. “We’ll go home. And you have to take a warm bath because you’re freezing. And I’ll make you soup so you don’t get sick. And stop leaving parties to come swim here at night.” 

Mingi smiles warmly, raising an eyebrow and watching as Yunho looked around carefully, as if something would swoop in and take them right off of the shores of South Lip. Mingi glances behind him, eyes scanning the water as best as he could for Seonghwa, and deciding, after coming up empty, that he would scold him for leaving him on the beach when he saw him next.

“Fine.”

And as Mingi was sitting in another hot bath, humming to himself and playing with the water around him as if it was made for only him, Yunho decided he was sick of that awful tune.


	8. tsunami

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> final chapter woo!!
> 
> there are references to the first chapter in here and stuff happens!! so please remember the tags!! and stay safe
> 
> enjoy!

The urge to go see Seonghwa had increased with everyday Mingi wasn’t at the beach.

It was like he had strung his conscience through his fingers, constantly pulling him within the minutes and the seconds that he couldn’t see him. The beach was desperate, it seemed like, and Mingi only knew what yearning had felt like within the week he tried not to go to the beach.

Yunho had been keeping an eye on him, and despite never telling Mingi that he was still worried for him, Mingi knew he was.

Being best friends for a while, he always knew what Yunho was feeling, down the way his lips quirked or his eyebrows pinched.

So when he makes his way out of their apartment today, he can’t help the guilt that injected itself through his veins, gripping his bones and thickening his blood with every step towards the beach. 

He just hoped that the note he left for Yunho was enough.

His roommate was constantly on his mind, but Mingi felt like he had to go back, like he owed Seonghwa an explanation for why he hasn’t been seeing him anymore.

He felt like he _needed_ to see him.

So, once the sky melts like candle wax, lilacs and azaleas and marigolds blooming wonderfully above the setting sun, Yunho leaves for work, and Mingi sets out of their apartment, putting the note on his bed for Yunho to read in case he gets home early.

Mingi gets there in no time, really, remembering the path from the countless times he’s ventured out to see him. It still felt like a dream sometimes, when he would look forward to letting his head float among the waves while Seonghwa made him feel alive in a place he’s felt invisible in.

He doesn’t think he could ever repay him.

He sees him sitting in the water again today, in his radiance against the glow of the sun, letting the crystal water run freely over his skin as he brings up a hand to run through his blonde hair. Mingi always thought it was nice for Seonghwa to have a safe place he liked to escape to as the day was drawing to a close.

Mingi could finally say he had one, too.

He notices the sky is cloaked in a rusty amber by now, Seonghwa humming against the melodies of the waves, a little bit louder as they crash into soap bubbles against the sand. Mingi’s heart feels empty tonight, and he thinks it might be because he was out here where he knew he shouldn’t be. 

Yunho would be upset with him again.

“Seonghwa?”

Seonghwa stops humming, though the echoes his voice still megaphoned in his head, and while he scrambles to stand up in the water, a pretty smile on his face with brown eyes that housed auroras and glowed with falling comets behind them, Mingi feels the butterflies in his stomach flutter and his heart is beating too fast for him to really be okay with.

Seonghwa had that kind of effect. Just like magic.

“Hi, baby.” Seonghwa lets Mingi run into him again, something that he’s quickly become fond of in their time of being together. 

Mingi was so endearing. This is going to be so hard.

“I’m sorry I haven’t been here. I was worrying Yunho too much.” Mingi says, looking at the water that covered their feet and soaked into his jeans, quickly getting used to it as the wind picked up through his loose long sleeve.

He pushes his specs back up his nose.

“Worrying him how?” Seonghwa asks, tilting his head slightly as Mingi pulls back, telling him to keep going.

“The last time I was here, remember? I fell asleep after we swam for so long. I forgot how tiring it is.” Mingi shakes his head, watching the soft currents wave at him in the dark. He feels better for a moment, before remembering waking up alone and Yunho's head practically bursting. 

“When you left me!”

Seonghwa falls sheepish, trying his best to be convincing. “Ah, I’m sorry, Min. I had to get home. I tried to wake you but you wouldn’t budge! I knew Yunho would get you so I wasn’t worried.”

And that kind of makes Mingi mad all of a sudden, at the fact that Seonghwa truly did leave him alone on the beach out of all places. And he knew he shouldn't rely on him so much to be okay when it comes to the water. He wasn't a baby.

But still.

Seonghwa notices Mingi’s expression when he looks back up at him, finding him pretty even if he was slightly annoyed at him. Seonghwa sighs through his nose, leaning towards Mingi’s ear and gently holding onto his waist, hearing Mingi’s breath hitch as a bonfire slowly heats under Seonghwa's palm.

“Don’t be mad at me, okay? I’m sorry.”

And by the time he pulls back, Mingi is smiling softly again as if nothing really happened last time, his eyes surfing on the waves as they roll towards them, looking into the darker parts of the sea where the last bits of the sun hit it perfectly, like oil paints.

“I think I wanna go swimming again,” Mingi said. “You were right. It’s beautiful here.”

Seonghwa smiles, watching Mingi’s deserted gaze into the sea.

“If you’d like to, we can. It’s nice under the water, isn’t it?”

Mingi nods and feels his heart spill from between his ribcage as Seonghwa takes his hand again, his fingers feeling exactly like how rain slides over his skin, lightly swinging them in between each other as if they had all the time in the world, like a domesticity Mingi only finds at home.

Mingi warms.

“Do you think Yunho will get worried if he doesn’t see you for a while?”

Mingi shakes his head, the thought of swimming in the water with Seonghwa for a while exciting him. It feels like he hasn’t done this in forever. Time was unforgiving sometimes, but it was moments like this when he was thankful for the breaks they got.

It feels like he needs to do this.

“Then let’s go. I wanna show you a spot. Remember the bioluminescence I told you about?” Seonghwa asks, silently speaking to the sea in hopes that she would grant his wishes tonight, while the mood was good and the guilt that threatened to bubble over had simmered down a little.

Only a little.

“Yeah. It’s here?” Mingi asks, wading farther into the ocean with Seonghwa at his side, the water lapping over his waist as Seonghwa practically glides through the sea, leading him.

“I found a spot, with geysers, too! Didn’t I tell you? This place is so nice.” Seonghwa smiles at him over his shoulder, and Mingi has to look away once his cheeks splash ruby.

“Y-yeah. I like it here. It’s pretty nice. Especially underwater. It’s like a different world when you’re down there.”

The faintest hint of blue peeks out from the curtains of dark water by the time Seonghwa stops, and before Mingi has the chance to really think about what he was looking at, it’s gone. Seonghwa takes his free hand and breaks the water’s surface with it again, and a flurry of neon blue spreads over the expanse of water before disappearing again, like crackles of electricity.

“Here it is. Are you okay?”

Mingi nods, transfixed in the way the water lit up as he runs a hand through it, reminding him of the lanterns that would spread through the sky from the festivals in his old town. He would release one among the many others, watching his hopes and dreams and imagination all float in the sky, holding hands with the aspirations of the other people that lived here.

And then they would disappear until he had come up with new ones for the next time.

He always liked festivals.

Mingi is brought back to the present as he runs his hand through the area again, the water exploding in a cadence of cerulean highlight, dazzling and beautiful and Mingi thinks this was probably the prettiest thing he’s ever seen.

Well, one of them.

“The geysers are close. Just a little deeper. Do you think you can do it? It’ll feel warmer there, like a bath.” Seonghwa said, the stroke of his thumb over Mingi’s hand enough courage for a lifetime of going into the water, and he nodded without a second thought.

“I think so. The water isn’t so bad. Not bad at all.”

The waves make noise and Mingi falls quiet as Seonghwa faces the sea, seemingly endless in the way the waves really came from a place of dreams. Mingi likes to think the sea was full of surprises in the way so many things were hidden here, like the bunny rabbits in magician’s hats. 

The seashells Mingi liked to put in Seonghwa’s hair, the plankton he was just lighting up a few moments ago, and now the geysers that warmed the water as easily as the summer sweltered over sidewalks in July — he thinks the beach really was ethereal so long as the right people were in it.

“Come be with me,” Seonghwa tells him, his ears barren and made for listening to what felt like only his voice, and Mingi lets him wander within his psyche as Seonghwa pulls him into a deeper part of the ocean.

"...Okay."

And he wanted to pull away, a part of him wrecked and terrified for the water still, but as Seonghwa holds his other hand out for him once they were chest deep, grinning at him with conviction, he can’t help but let his worries flake away, too.

It doesn’t take much for them to slip underneath the surface, into the warming sea as the geysers gently bubble beneath his feet, barely there. Mingi is reminded of the bathtub, and he feels okay for the time being. Seonghwa’s hair floats around him like clouds, and as his specs lift off of his face this time, he doesn’t bother to catch them.

He felt like he didn’t need them right now, wanting to focus everything into being underwater.

He’s surrounded in the sea, something that took almost everything from him, yet, was giving him back everything and more in return. Seonghwa takes his hand, and Mingi is careful not to run out of breath. He begins to hum again, Mingi always loving the way his voice carries above the water, the soft bubbles melting with his voice and he could only hear him.

Even now, it feels like he’s filling the entirety of the sea and the rest of the world with his tune. 

Mingi smiles sweetly and laces their fingers together, feeling somewhat scared, but curious. Kind of like going on a rollercoaster for the first time, and waiting in line. 

Except, there was no option to turn back.

Mingi didn’t know that, not really.

The warm water renders him diaphanous as the world spins ever so slowly. He meets Seonghwa’s voice, humming along with him as Seonghwa smiles and runs a hand through Mingi’s hair, landing at the side of his throat and holding him as if he were Seonghwa’s most prized possession and he didn’t want to damage it, afraid of pressing too hard.

His body feels heavy. But he was okay. Seonghwa was alright, too.

Mingi could barely see the bubbles make their way out of Seonghwa’s nose, not noticing how they stopped completely, yet, Seonghwa didn’t seem to be in any panic about it. He stops humming for a moment, catching Mingi, and he leans forward to kiss him for the last time. Mingi shuts his eyes again, the warm water amplifying everything by a million, Seonghwa tasting like salt, as if he was made up entirely of the ocean again. 

Mingi holds on to his waist, feeling his chest fill, anxious like the rising sun in the morning, but for the first time, he feels truly alive. 

Like a star in the dark corners of the universe, twinkling silently in the stratosphere and flickering as the singular lightbulb in the basement would, waiting for someone to come seek it out and prove it worthy of the effort.

He thinks this is what it feels like to be discovered again.

He peers into Seonghwa’s pretty eyes as he pulls back, and somewhere in the world, as Seonghwa hums and plays with his fingers, as Mingi is soaked in saltwater and forgiveness, as they both plummet over cliffs and float above the clouds, as Mingi counts his slowing heartbeat until his thoughts wrapped around Seonghwa instead, white lilies bloom. 

Somewhere in the world, babies are born, people are crying on their wedding night, and someone falls asleep beside their partner until the morning. Somewhere in the world, people are dancing like it’s the last night of their lives, and taking shots of sharp liquor while playing party games, hoping to see another day.

 _Somewhere in the world,_ two boys are electric and alive, just like the bioluminescence Mingi had loved so much once, running through daisy fields while fireflies settle in the other’s hair. 

And as Mingi sinks with Seonghwa, holding onto each other as you would diamonds, as pretty emerald scales glimmered among the dark water and Seonghwa’s eyes glowed blue livewire just like the plankton a little ways away, as the ocean floor seemed to vanish beneath them, he thinks it’s true how the world can really stop during moments like this.

Time ticked so, very, beautifully _slowly_ under here.

~★~

Everyone dies at South Lip Beach. That was a truth that Yunho knew all too well.

He just couldn’t believe Mingi was one of them when the morning came. 

He screamed for him on the beach, kneeling in the sand and calling out his name as if the waves knew where he was, as if the currents would go out to seek him and bring him back for him. Finding his glasses and a keychain on the shore, caked in wet sand and pieces of broken seashell, as if it had been another decoration for the sea, like it didn’t belong to anyone else but her, made him cry, made him tug at his hair and press his throbbing head into the sand, searching for his best friend without ever truly finding him.

He screamed for Mingi so loudly he felt the sea split, and for Seonghwa even louder, but after not getting a response and trying not to lose his mind on the shoreline, he made himself go back home, screaming some more to his friends and to the police that looked like they couldn’t care less about Mingi.

No one else cared that Mingi was gone. It was as if the town was hellbent on forgetting about him. Just another drowning at South Lip Beach with nothing to show for it.

Yunho thinks that’s shitty.

Grief was persistent, not tiring. Like the first, cold drops of rain that speckled you right before a storm. And the storm would come in bouts, choking and desperate, suffocating as it pooled in lungs and drained down cheeks. 

And then the rain would speckle you again.

Mingi was dubbed the sixth drowning at South Lip, the sixth human turned into a name printed on a newspaper to collect dust behind the broken glass in the news stands, the sixth to be erased from the world and future memories they had yet to build.

The first to break Yunho’s heart, on top of it all.

Their apartment had gotten emptier by the day, and by the time a week passed, he was torturing himself by staying in the same place where the shadow of his best friend lingered, where the phantoms of his laugh echoed through the desolate rooms, how the apparitions of his smile now reminded him of thunder and how lightning strikes trees to set them ablaze and destroy homes. 

Yunho had been angry at him for a while, because he _told_ him to stay away from that beach. 

He knew that Mingi was just too trusting, is all.

Yunho left tears in the kitchen where they used to burn food on accident, left puddles in the living room where they would watch B-rated horror flicks past midnight, leave waves in his bedroom where they would lay together when the day was particularly tough for the both of them and they needed a break. 

He would flood if he stayed here. He had to go.

Wooyoung called him and suggested he leave, maybe move in with them for now until he felt he could move on. And there was no way he would ever move on from something like this, but he listens to him anyway, deciding it was better to let others figure out what’s best for you when your own ideas slip through your fingers.

He doesn’t think he’d ever forgive himself for letting Mingi do the same.

~★~

As he was packing up his bedroom today, too scared of sleeping in there for weeks with the fear that Mingi would come back and yell at him for thinking he was gone, that he would have to face him after trying to get him out of his head, he finally saw it.

A note, with the corners slightly curled as black ink bled through the back of it, old and rushed and just that much of a horrible reminder. Yunho didn’t know if he should’ve opened it.

And he probably shouldn’t have, not yet, at least, but he did anyway.

He sat on Mingi's bed, feeling foreign while the air sharpens around him, like he truly didn’t belong here. Like he didn’t deserve to sit here and try to be okay while Mingi was somewhere else, without him.

And when Yunho begins to cry, when his hands are shaking and there are puddles all over the paper, when his chest aches with the memory of him and his fingertips burn with how hard he was gripping the note, he thinks this is too much of a shitty thing to deal with by himself. 

This was _scary_ and he was truly alone and his tears were ruining the ink of the last piece of Mingi’s handwriting and it makes him feel so terrible, like wringing out a heavy, wet towel.

How many times did Mingi have to die?

As he reads over, as he remembers all the adventures they spoke about going on, as he thinks back to the parties and clubs he’d dragged Mingi out to, as he reminisces on the nights spent with each other in their apartment, he realizes just how fast time ticked when it was running out.

~★~

_Yunho!_

_Please don’t worry about me. I know I've been doing things that scare you and I'm sorry. But tonight, if I’m not home yet, don’t worry about me, alright?_

_You were right - there is something off about that beach. Every day, it felt like it was calling me. I heard his voice when I slept and when I was awake and when I was in class and with my friends. And the chants of the waves, calling to me, desperate, almost. And on top of the overwhelming want to go see him, I feel like I just need to do something there. I don’t know what, yet, but...I have to go._

_You understand that, right?_

_So I’ll be at the beach tonight. Hwa is there probably, so I won’t be alone. I kind of want to see how far I could get in the water. I’ve stopped being scared of drowning so much. The fear is still there, but it’s not as bad. I’m going to get over my fear today. You and my mom would be so proud of me!_

_I’ve just got to go. It’s beautiful here, you’d love it. We’ll go together one day, okay?_

_I just realized how this note sounds like I’m about to die or something. Sorry!!!! Don’t worry I’m not gonna die. I’ll see you soon. And I’m sorry if you’re worrying now. But I have to do it. I just feel like I have to go today._

_You understand that, right??_

_Later, Yuyu._

_From_ _Mingi - AKA your favorite person in the world! Who is also trying his best to live. Only a little._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anddd that's it!! pls let me know how you liked it, or if you didn't
> 
> thank you for taking the time to read. i hope i executed everything in a way that wasn't confusing and that you enjoyed and wasn't too tedious ;-;
> 
> i think the next au i'll do is gonna be a ws rivals to lovers and i also have a teeny breakup ws au that's kinda done so if ur into that stay tuned ^-^ 
> 
> thank you so very much for the kudos and kind comments on this!! i hope the rest didnt disappoint u hhhh
> 
> okay peace out see u soon and thank u for reading seongi enthusiasts <33


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